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5TUDY-Af«>-STORY-NATURE-READERS 
W 




rREADER 

FOR 

nSTTEBMEBMrE-GMBES! 



. L'LIII I I WMWX J ■ w:i,u.iaTOWj , ^ 



GINN *AND*COMPANY 



nfenetHEBORB 



2nd COPY, 
1893. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



O t " — — 2 

CliapTr_ Copyright No.. 

Shelt^LJL. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Bird World 



A BIRD BOOK FOR CHILDREN 






J. H. STICKNEY 



ASSISTED BY 



RALPH HOFFMANN 



BOSTON, U.S.A. 
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

©be athenaeum press 

1898 






21488 



Copyright, 1898 
By GINN & COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



£iV£*« 







TO ITS PUBLISHERS AND ESPECIALLY TO 

flbr. Justin fti* Smttb 

UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES IT WAS BEGUN 

AND TO WHOSE KINDNESS AND COUNSEL I OWE SO MUCH 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED 

AS A TOKEN OF GRATITUDE AND REGARD 



PREFACE. 



TT may be of interest to some of our readers to know under 
what guidance they are to make this little journey into the 
borders of Bird World. 

First, then, the plan and direction come from the author 
of some books they have known as the Stickney Readers. It 
may be thought worth while to venture on this new pleasure 
trip under the same leadership. 

Second, a gentleman has been found to act as special 
conductor, — one who has lived closer to Bird World than any 
of us. For years he has known by sight and sound all our 
New England birds, and many, if not most, of our chance 
summer and winter visitors, beside having particularly intimate 
acquaintance with some which we too shall be glad to meet. 
A number of the stories which follow are based upon his own 
personal observations. You will find his name upon the title 
page. He is a director in the Audubon Society for the Pro- 
tection of Birds, which makes it certain that the citizens of 
Bird World are as safe in his hands as are we. You have thus 
the combined powers of two who are both friends of young 
people and of birds. 



v i PREFACE. 

A third point of interest lies in having true portraits of 
birds by the distinguished artist, Mr. Ernest Seton Thompson, for 
which you must thank our generous publishers, as also for the 
color photographs which help us to see better how the living 
birds w r e are learning to recognize really look. A number of 
other kindnesses have helped us to make this book attractive 
and instructive. The use of drawings by Mr. Ridgway was 
most kindly allowed us by Dr. Merriam, of the Department of 
Agriculture, at Washington. Other sketches were made for us 
by Mr. Knobel, and by arrangement with the publishers of the 
Osprey we have the use of several attractive portraits and 
sketches. For the use of the Snowy Egret we are indebted to 
Miss S. J. Eddy. 

We also express our obligation to visitors we have met in 
Bird World, some of whose names occur in our record, for bits 
of testimony and song. In return we commend the books they 
have given to the world to be read when this "younger book" 
has prepared you for them. Among them are : Birds of Village 
and Field, Miss Florence Merriam ; Citizen Bird, Mrs. Mabel 
Osgood Wright ; Winter Neighbors, Neltje Blanchan ; Bird Life, 
F. A. Chapman ; and the writings of Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE | 

The Goldfinch i 

The Phoebe 3 

Verses 6 

The Robin 7 

The Oriole 11 

Heralds of the Summer ... 13 

The Bluebird 15 

The Coming of the Birds ... 18 

The Indigo Bird 19 

The Story of a Grouse .... 21 

Bird Acquaintance 24 

Bills of Fare 26 

Gull Dick 29 

Verses 30 

The Owl 31 

The Scarlet Tanager .... 36 

The Politest Bird 27 

A Family of Backwoodsmen . . 40 

The Downy Woodpecker . 41 

The Flicker 44 

The Sapsucker 47 

A Second Sparrow Study ... 49 
The Song Sparrow and the 

Chipping Sparrow 15 



PAGE 

How Birds Pass the Night . . 54 

The Blue Jay 56 

Bkd Homes 58 

The Nest as an Oven . -59 

The Kingbird 63 

The Warbler Family .... 67 

A Clever Wren 68 

Audubon and the House 

Wren 69 

The Wren 70 

At the Bath. y^ 

The Catbird . . . ' . . ... 75 

Verses 78 

Nest Builders 79 

The Swallows 84 

Verses 85 

The Barn Swallow 86 

The Red-winged Blackbird . . 89 

About Birds' Toes 91 

Bob White 95 

Audubon and the Phcebes ... 98 

How Young Birds Get Fed . . 99 

Food of Birds 100 

When a Bird Changes his Clothes. 103 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

A Bird in the Hand 106 

Bird Passports 113 

The Bird of Many Names . . .117 

The Bobolink 119 

Gypsy Birds 121 

Foster-Mothers 123 

Two Father Birds 126 

Born in a Boat 128 

How the Wood Duck Gets her 

Young to the Water . . . .130 
The Great Caravan Route . -131 
Bird World in Winter . . . .135 
Bird Lodgings in Winter . . .138 

Verses 139 

The Eagle 140 

The Chickadee 141 

A Bird-Paradise 142 

Verses 143 

The Sea-Gull 144 



PAGE 

A Great Traveler 145 

The Redstart 150 

The Humming Bird 151 

As Free as a Bird 155 

To the Great and General Court 

of Massachusetts 158 

Birds' Enemies 162 

Families in Bird World . . .169 

Feathers and Flight 172 

Flight 178 

The Snowy Egret 180 

The Wood Thrush 183 

The Brown Thrush 184 

Hawks 186 

Bird Language 190 

Some Strange Bird Music . . -193 

Bird Bills 195 

Appendix 199 

Index ,..212 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND COLORED 

PICTURES. 



PAGE 

A Pair of Goldfinches i 

Robin colored 9 

12 



Oriole 

Yellow Warbler . 
Bluebird .... 
Owl 

Scarlet Tanager . 
Cedar Bird . . . 
Downy Woodpecker 



l 3 
16 

33 
36 
37 
40 



The Song Sparrow 51 

A Pair of Kingbirds 64 

Louisiana Water Thrushes 67 

A Happy Pair 84 

Part of a Quail Family 96 

Black-throated Green Warblers 100 

Winter Life . 136 

Herring Gulls and their Nesting-Places 144 

The Redstart 150 

A Pair of Orioles 156 

A Useful Hawk "... 188 

The Wood Thrush 192 




A PAIR OF GOLDFINCHES. 



BIRD WORLD, 



ol^o 



THE GOLDFINCH. 

SINCE there must be a first bird for us to meet in 
this long visit we are to make together in Bird 
World, and some of us have to choose which one, sup- 
pose we let it be the pretty confiding Goldfinch, 
who with his mate shall stand upon the threshold to 
receive us. 

This old pasture where little grows but weeds and 
thistles is a favorite place with the Goldfinches. 
Thistlebird is one of the names by which they are 
known. There is no merrier bird than the Goldfinch. 
He spends the pleasantest part of the year, the spring 
months, when other birds are busiest, singing and 
enjoying the sunshine. When winter comes, instead 
of leaving us he stays with a happy company of friends, 
feeding on weeds that stand above the snow, twitter- 
ing and calling sweetly to his companions. It is not 
strange, then, that the Goldfinch has many friends and 
no enemies. 



2 BIRD WORLD. 

The little Goldfinches are cradled in the softest of 
silk — nothing less than thistledown. With this the 
mother lines the nest, which is generally built late in 
June, when thistles have begun to ripen. The thistle 
is a good friend to the Goldfinch, for its seeds are a 
favorite food. 

When the little Goldfinches leave the nest, they are 
by no means as brightly colored as their father. No 
canary-colored vest or black cap is provided for them, 
but very sober brownish suits. When April comes 
again, you will see some of them looking a little 
brighter, and in a few weeks they will come into as 
bright plumage as their father. The others, the 
females, still keep the darker color, like their mother. 

The Goldfinch flies in great curves, and as he goes 
downward he begins a pretty little twitter which he 
finishes on the upward curve. Through the wide air, 
over fields and farms, he swings along with his bright 
" De-dfe-de, de-dee-de, de-dee~de." Not the coldest or 
wettest weather can make him utter a complaining 
note. Perhaps you know some boy or girl who is 
cheerful and lively all the day and all the year. 



THE PHCEBE. 




NEAR Boston there is a little stream celebrated by 
an American poet who loved birds. It is called 
Beaver Brook, and the 
scenery about it is so 
beautiful that, partly by 
gift and partly by pur- 
chase, a large tract of 
land has. been set apart ^1 
for a Park, or Reserva- - ; ^ 
tion as it is called, so l| 
that its beauty can be 
preserved and people be 
free to visit it whenever 
they wish. 

At the head of the 
brook are two ponds, and between the two is a little 
bridge under which the water all the year rushes 
foaming and splashing. When the poet Lowell used 
to visit the brook, there was a mill at this spot, and 
the foaming water used to turn a big mill wheel and 
help the dusty miller grind the grain which his neigh- 
bors brought. 



v %i 






Fig. i. — Phoebe. 



4 BIRD WORLD. 

About the last of March every year a citizen of 
Massachusetts, who has spent the winter farther south, 
returns to the spot and calls out his name from the 
trees about the shore, " Phoe-bee ! Phoe-bee ! " stopping 
now and then to dart over the water for a gnat or fly, 
and snapping his tail when he returns to the tree. 

An old man w r ho has lived in the neighborhood for 
many years says that when he w r as a boy, seventy 
years ago, the Phoebe came every year just as it does 
to-day, and he and his sister visited the mill every 
April to find the neat, well-built nest which the bird 
placed on the rafters of the mill. 

The buzzing and whirring of the wheel, and the 
grinding sound made by the heavy millstones did not 
disturb either the parent birds or their young. The 
miller knew them and gladly let them use his roof for 
shelter. 

The boy and his sister loved them too, and never 
stole the nest nor frightened them. To-day the mill 
is torn down, but on the very spot where it stood 
they find the bridge, and under it the strong beams 
that support it. Here they still build their nest ; the 
water foams and splashes below them ; people, and 
sometimes horses and wagons, tramp over them, but 
they have no fear. In spite of all the changes, they 
prefer their old home to any other. 

The old man and his sister must soon pass away, 



THE PHCEBE. 5 

and even the younger people who now visit the spot 
will sometime die too, but if the state, which now 
owns the ponds, leaves the bridge and the trees and 
bushes on its banks, I feel sure that every springtime 
the Phoebe's note will be heard in the last days of 
March, and the pretty moss-covered nest will be built 
under the bridge. 

The young birds will learn to fly off and catch 
insects on the wing, and will snap their tails too, as 
their parents do ; and some day, when their parents 
die, they will come and build nests under the bridge. 
No one knows when they first came to this spot, nor 
how long they will continue to return. 

Note. — It was my happy privilege to live for seven years in the cot- 
tage upon the estate to which the ponds belonged before Massachusetts 
made a present of them to all its nature-loving citizens. 

It must have been this same Phcebe who called to me from the pine 
grove across the street so often in its plaintive way. Once when I was 
ill I took turns in fancying, first, that Phoebe was lost and wished to 
be found ; and, second, that some one was staying away too long and 
must be called home to ease an anxious heart. But the note is hardly 
like a call ; it sounds more like a sweet, loving memory that takes this 
way of expressing itself. How glad I should have been then to know 
that I was living at the ancestral home of this ancient family ! 

J. H. S. 



BIRD WORLD. 

WHY ROBIN DID NOT SING IN THE SOUTH. 

If I ever tried a note 
Something rose within my throat. 

'T was because my heart was true 
To the north and springtime new ; 

My mind's eye a nest could see 
In yon old forked apple tree ! 



Edith Thomas, 




Fig. 2. — Robin. 

They ? ll come again to the apple tree, — 

Robin and all the rest, — 
When the orchard branches are fair to see 

In the snow of blossoms dressed, 
And the prettiest thing in the world will be 

The building of the nest. 

Mrs. M. E. Sangster. 



THE ROBIN. 

LONG before you are awake, the Robins have had 
a morning meeting, sung a very jolly chorus, 
visited two or three cherry trees, and by the time you 
have breakfasted and come out to play, they are 
taking a second meal on the lawns. 

Watch one for a moment and then try to tell how 
he looks. He is larger than a Sparrow, — nearly 
twice as large ; his bill v is longer, sharper, and is 
bright orange in color. 

Robin's head is wholly black, not patched like that 
of the Sparrow ; his back is brown, and his breast 
much the color of your Jersey cow. 

Instead of squabbling and scratching in the middle 
of the street, or flying off in flocks to houses or tree- 
tops, he stands straight and dignified, his plump breast 
showing clearly against the green grass, or runs a few 
steps and then draws himself up stiffly again. 

Fruit is very dear to the Robin. Cherries in sum- 
mer, strawberries in spring, and cedar berries in 
winter. But when you see him on the lawns, he is 
hunting for food which only a fish would care to 
share with him. He braces himself on his feet and 
pulls and pulls, till the poor worm he is seeking has 



8 BIRD WORLD. 

to let go, and after some hard pounding by Robin's 
sharp bill, it is carried off to the nest for the little 
ones, or gulped down by Robin himself. 

Mr. James Russell Lowell calls the Robin's nest 
ik an adobe house." Perhaps some of you have read 
how people in Colorado build houses of dried clay, 
which bakes in the sun. This is called adobe, and 
both the Robin and the Swallow know how to build 
in this fashion. 

Four eggs of " robin's egg blue," laid early in May, 
hatch into very ugly and very hungry youngsters. 
Their big yellow mouths are opened wide whenever 
the mother or father comes near. These parents are 
kept busy all day and every day for a fortnight till the 
young birds grow big, till feathers cover their naked 
little bodies, and one of them steps to the edge of the 
mud nest ancjLlooks out. 

This is an anxious time for the parents. Soon the 
boldest youngster tries his wings and makes for a 
neighboring twig. If he misses it and flutters down 
to the ground, the parents fly back and forth, making 
a great outcry which collects many other birds. If 
no cat comes prowling about, the little one tries again 
and perhaps gets safely off, but often a bunch of gray 
feathers tells the sad story of his short life. 

When the young birds who escape all the dangers 
from cats and hawks, are strong enough to find food 



THE ROBIN. 



9 



for themselves, the parents build another nest and rear 
another brood. Meanwhile the first brood fly each 
night to some neighboring grove where they are joined 
by other young Robins from miles around. The birds 
assemble in such numbers that the pattering of their 




Colored Robin. 



wings on the leaves, while they are arranging their 
places for the night, sounds like falling rain. 

Not only do the young birds come to these " roosts," 
as they are called, but father- Robins also, who cannot 
help their wives after sunset, join their children, or 
perhaps show them the way. 



IO BIRD WORLD. 

One gentleman, who watched a family of Robins 
near his house, writes : " The female came and took 
possession of the nest for the night. I saw her 
brooding the vouno- till it became so dark that I could 
distinguish nothing. On the following evening the 
male fed the young at about the same hour, then flew 
to the top of a spruce tree, and after singing a good- 
night to wife and babies, took a direct flight for the 
roost. The female then fed the young and settled 
herself in the nest." 

By the time you have learned the birds' names, and 
begun to watch their habits, you may wonder whether 
there is anything new for you to find out. 

You may think, that if so many people have studied 
them for a hundred years, they will have found out 
all their interesting ways. But do not be discouraged. 
Nothing could be more interesting than this habit of 
the Robins of assembling every summer night in these 
great companies ; and yet, though the Robin is every- 
where common, and has been studied by hundreds of 
bird students, it was only eight years ago that anything 
was written about " Robin roosts." 



THE ORIOLE. 



IT is in May when woodlands are green with swell- 
ing buds and spreading leaves, and fragrant with 
the sweet wild flowers, that the brilliant Oriole appears 



among us. 



Very early one morning I heard his clear whistle 
and hastened to find him. He looked down upon me 
rather inquiringly, as if he wanted to say, " What do 
you think of me ? " and my heart answered, " I think 
you are beautiful ! " 

He was alone for a few days, busy as a bird could 
be, trying to select a house lot. He flew from tree to 
tree, in orchard, garden, and yard. A tall, stately elm 
seems to please him best, and when the shy little lady 
he is to make his wife is coaxed to the tallest branch, 
she demurs, as she know r s the peril of building there, 
and with a decision he does not quite relish she tells 
him a lower branch would suit her better. 

She begins very soon to collect materials for build- 
ing, singing as she works, making long journeys for 
the hair and twine necessary for her home. After 
nest come eggs, and after eggs baby birds. The 
proud and happy father shows his love as well by the 
care he takes, and the watchfulness, as by the songs 



12 



BIRD WORLD. 



he pours from his full throat. Often he seems to 
say to the mother, " Run out now and stretch a 




Colored Oriole. 



little " ; and she goes, but not for very long. Why 
is it that mothers think no one can be quite so con- 
tent and happy with their babies as themselves ? 




Summer Warbler, or Yellowbird. 

HERALDS OF THE SUMMER, 

IF we make a residence in Bird World in such a place 
that our doors and windows open out upon hedges 
or shrubbery, or upon a garden, we shall not need to 
search for this little bird in the picture. He will come 
to us with his pretty yellow mate. 



14 BIRD WORLD. 

The gentleness of the summer Yellowbirds wins 
our love. They are as sunny in their temper as in 
their looks. " Pretty is that pretty does " never need 
put them to shame. 

The Cowbirds have long since found it out and, like 
the naughty birds they are, have taken advantage of 
it ; but gentle people, if they will not quarrel, will not 
always suffer their own plans to be turned aside. The 
Cowbird sometimes finds his match, as we shall see. 
The following little word-picture will show you how a 
Yellowbirds nest looked to Mr. Kevser, and w^hat 
the bird did when she found herself imposed upon. 

" The nest of the Summer Warbler w r as a dainty 
structure, composed of downy material, and deftly 
lodged among the twigs of a sapling at the foot of a 
cliff. A cold spring gurgled from the rocks near by ; 
the willows and buttonwood trees bent to the balmy 
breeze, and the tinkling of the brook mingled with 
the songs of many birds. 

" Our little strategist comes home and finds a Cow- 
bird's egg dropped into her nest. She begins forth- 
with to add another story, and this leaves the interloper 
in the cellar, with a floor between it and her warm 
breast. I have found several of these exquisite towers 
that were three stories high, in the top of which the 
little bird sat perched like a goddess on the summit 
of Olympia." 



THE BLUEBIRD. 

DO you believe that a Bluebird would think of com- 
ing to New England in February ? 

One bright, crisp morning in the last month of 
winter, I heard a clear, lively, little song that I knew, 
and of course I hastened to find my friend, the Blue- 
bird. The " Blue Robin" little children sometimes call 
him, and indeed he is a cousin to the Robin family. 

He was very cunning at hiding in the old apple 
tree, and very shy when I found him. 

Soon there was a nest, and a little later a family of 
five, one being a guest who had traveled north for the 
first time, perhaps, and was not in haste to have the 
care of a family. He never did any work, but flitted 
about as if made simply to enjoy himself and be 
admired. 

If you had seen him, you would have thought it 
very natural. Such a putting together of heavenly 
blue, and warm, rich, yellowish red would be enough 
to turn any head that was not full of earnest purpose. 

The home was built by the bird mother in the 
orchard where I could easily watch it, and we became 
very good friends, these dear Bluebirds and I. They 



i6 



BIRD WORLD. 



ate the crumbs I gave them, and my joy in them was 
complete when they came boldly to my door. 




Bluebird. 



Mother Bluebird, as perhaps you may know, is more 
quietly dressed than her gallant mate. It is not that 



THE BLUEBIRD. 



*7 



she would not take good care of a bright costume, for 
birds are tidy in their persons ; but she thinks more 
of safety than of looks, and it might be inconvenient 
to have to fly out of harm's reach just when home 
could least spare her. 

A pair of Robins with very red breasts built a nest 
close by, and seemed to be good neighbors. How 
did I know, do you ask ? Well, for one thing they 
formed a chorus, and before sunrise I w r ould hear 
them singing together. 



Forehead 
Bill 



roat 




The above diagram explains some names often used in describing a bird. 



THE COMING OF THE BIRDS. 

IN the lesson on the Oriole you read that he came 
in May when buds were bursting into flowers. I 
wonder whether you asked yourself, as you read, 
where he had come from and why he had not come 
before. 

These are questions that the very wisest men have 
found it hard to answer. Without hurrying to answer 
them now, — for if you read further there will be more 
about these things, — let us ask some country boy 
when the birds come back and which come first. 

If our friend has sharp eyes and ears, he will know 
that early in March he hears the first Robin, and 
with him come the gentle Bluebird, the noisy Black- 
birds, and the cheery Song Sparrow. The Phoebe 
waits a fortnight till the flies and gnats begin to stir, 
for his food does not lie on the ground like that of 
the birds just mentioned. 

In April come many more birds, but May is the 
great month for the returning tribes. The names 
alone of all those that come in the warm days of early 
May would fill a page. Bird World in the north is 
like a seaside summer place, very empty in winter, 
but stirring with life in summer. 



THE INDIGO BIRD. 

NOW that we are on Bluebirds, let us give a 
thought to a smaller Bluebird without the bright 
breast. 

The Indigo bird seems to be all blue till, looking 
closely, we see a greenish cast in some lights, and 
a trace of brownish color on under parts and wings 
and tail. 

The Bluebird, as I told you, though smaller than the 
Robin, is a near relative ; the Indigo bird is perhaps 
as near a cousin to the Sparrow. Lady Indigo wears 
brown for the most part, only adding her husband's 
" colors," as a good wife should, on shoulders and 
outer tail webs. 

This is a wise precaution, for these birds do not 
carry on their family affairs high out of harm's way, 
but build a nest in a low bush or on tall, stiff grasses. 
They will build by the roadside sooner than close by 
our homes, and they do not respond with confidence 
to our friendly advances. 

But, while they nest and feed on or near the ground, 
you will most often see one swinging from a topmost 
twig of a tall tree, when its song makes you search 
for the singer. 



20 BIRD WORLD. 

Do not look for them among the very earliest birds ; 
they make up to us for coming later to the bird con- 
cert of the year, by singing away on in August, when 
many of the other birds are resting their voices. If 
you are walking or riding on a country road well lined 
with shrubs and trees, I should be surprised if you do 
not before summer ends, looking up, see the male 
Indigo bird — a little blue canary you will think 
— on the outer end of a high twig; or, once in 
a summer, you may come upon the dust-colored 
mother dusting herself as mother-hens do, and com- 
ing from her bath feeling as clean as you do coming 
from yours. 



What if the sky is clouded ? 

What if the rain comes down ? 
They are all dressed to meet it 

In waterproof suits of brown. 



BLUEBIRD. 



" So the Bluebirds have contracted, have they for a house ? 
And a nest is under way for little Mr. Wren? 
Hush, dear, hush! Be quiet, quiet as a mouse." 



THE STORY OF A GROUSE. 

I WAS born in the swamp at the foot of this hill, 
under the laurel ; and as soon as I broke through 
the shell, I ran off over the dry leaves with my brothers 
and sisters. 

There were ten of us, and from June, when we 
were born, till August we kept close to our mother. 
The whole family wandered here and there through 
the swamp, and though we children sometimes ran off 
too far, we found each other again by peeping and by 
listening for our mother's cluck. 

Once a man and two children came upon us sud- 
denly and we all hurried off among the leaves, where 
we squatted down and kept as quiet as we could. 
Our mother, however, ran out in front of the man, 
trailing her wings close to the ground, and keeping 
his attention till she felt sure we were well hidden. 
Then she ran off through the bushes. Presently we 
heard her cluck and each of us answered with a faint 
peep and one after another we came out from our hid- 
ing places. Then our mother took us quickly off 
into the deep bushes to a place of safety. 

We found enough to eat all summer ; berries were 
plentiful and we became skilful in catching the spi- 



2 2 BIRD WORLD. 

ders and beetles that ran over the ground. When 
we were very little we spent the night under our 
mother's wings, poking our heads out through the 
feathers when it grew light. 

What we disliked most was the cold rain that 
sometimes fell, chilling us through our feathers, and 
preventing us from finding food. 

We kept together till the fall and since then, though 
there are many Grouse in these woods, we have never 
had a family reunion. By the fall, too, we had all 
learned to fly pretty well ; we were strong of wing, 
and at night we flew into trees and roosted on the 
branches. 

Now began the season when men came into the 
woods to shoot us, and though I escaped myself, I 
often saw the fallen feathers of less fortunate birds. 

The sound of the guns, and an experience I had 
with a fox who almost caught me because I was 
roosting too near the ground, taught me a valuable 
lesson, so that now, without boasting, I may claim to 
be a pretty wary old bird. 

I well remember the falling of the first snow in 
November, and yet I was not so surprised as you might 
imagine. It seemed natural to see the white masses 
covering the vines and leaves ; and I found that feath- 
ers had grown on my toes so that it was almost as 
if I walked on snowshoes. When I found out that 



THE STORY OF A GROUSE, 23 

the buds of many of the bushes were fine eating, I felt 
no desire to leave the woods where I was born. 

So here I stay, year in and year out. In March I 
have a favorite log where I always drum. You can 
hear my strokes a mile away, and when I am drum- 
ming I spread out my tail and blow out my feath- 
ers, till there is no handsomer bird in the swamp. 

Each year I see and hear the Ovenbirds that come 
to rest on my log, and they tell me of their journeys 
southward in the fall, and the fine woods they find 
where there is never snow, but I think my own woods 
are best. I should be a foolish Grouse to fly so far 
into an unknown country when my feathers keep me 
so warm and buds are so easy to find. 



BIRD ACQUAINTANCE. 

HOW many birds are you sure you would know by 
sight ? You can tell an English Sparrow from 
a Robin or Bluebird, and you would not mistake the 
Summer Yellowbird or the Oriole perhaps. 

Will you not begin to get into closer acquaintance 
with the citizens of Bird World ? Let us stop searching 
for new birds and study awhile some that we already 
know. The English Sparrow is the commonest of 
all, and you will not need to go far to find one. 

As I write, there is one within a few feet of me in 
the pear-tree branches outside my window. 

What is it that we wish to know ? First, by what 
marks shall we recognize him when he comes again ? 
The male and female Sparrows differ, and the young 
at different ages. We will try to remember where 
this one is slate color, and where brown, where light 
colored, and where darker, whether the color is in 
patches, bars, or streaks, whether it shades into an- 
other color or ends distinctly. The diagram jof a 
bird on page 17 will help us in stating what we see. 

Now we must record what we have learned, to see 
if it fits the next Sparrow. This one may be a Cock 
Sparrow, and that may be a lady-bird ; or this may be 



BIRD ACQUAINTANCE. 25 

a bird a year or two old, and the next one but a few 
months. It will take time to learn them all. 

Now we are ready to study the ways of our little 
visitor in the tree. See him rub his bill, first on this 
side and then that, against the branch on which he 
perches. Is it to dry it, or to sharpen it, or to polish 
it ? Half the time it may be only a habit. 

He is on a bare branch, but how he pecks and 
pecks ; if you watch, you may see him swallow. 
When he has gone, go and see if there are grubs or 
insects in the cracks of the bark. 

While you have been looking, he has hopped to 
new places to rub his bill and peck as before. He 
goes to a topmost branch and you see his under parts. 
The branch is too large for him to grasp with his toes, 
but he clings, and head and tail help him to^keep his 
balance. Perhaps he will stretch one wing so that its 
quills stand ail apart ; and see him lift the little brown 
feathers under his chin, or where his chin should be. 
Do you know how much birds can lift and loosen 
their feathers if they wish, or how tightly they can 
hug them ? If you saw them held loosely on a cold 
day or night, they would make Cock Sparrow seem a 
much larger bird. 

If you have looked with real interest at one little 
half-despised Sparrow, something has been left in your 
heart which will remain and grow. 



BILLS OF FARE. 

A CERTAIN family in a country town is often 
joined at dinner by some friends who are con- 
tent with " just the bones." 

Dogs, you will say; but they are not dogs. Turn 
to page 141 and you will see one of these little guests, 
and if you look closely you will see that though he 
cannot get as much off a bone as a dog, yet his beak 
is stout enough and his eye sharp enough to pick the 
last bit of gristle. 

He does not come to these people's table, but if 
the window is open he is almost within reach of the 
children's hands. There is an old apple tree just out- 
side the dining-room, and on its branches there always 
hangs a ham or mutton bone. This is visited almost 
every day in winter until it is picked clean. 

Sometimes the Downy Woodpecker drills into the 
tough tendrons, and occasionally a fat bluish gray 
bird with white under parts — Nuthatch is his name 
— joins the Chickadees at their feast. 

Where are the other winter birds ? you will ask. 
Cannot the little Kinglet and the Creeper have their 
share ? 



1ULLS OF FARE. 27 

The people who put out the bones would be glad 
enough to welcome them, and from what I know of 
the Chickadee's manners, I think he would be the last 
to treat them rudely, if they came ; but yet they are 
never seen clinging to the bone and picking at the 
frozen scraps. 

To ask a hungry Creeper to have a piece of gristle 
would be as cruel as the Stork was to his friend 
Reynard. No one is quicker than a Creeper when it 
is a question of prying a canker-worm's eggs out of 
a crevice in the bark, but he cannot use his slender 
bill for such rough work as hacking frozen meat. 

Up in Vermont is another family who spread a 
table for their bird friends. The bone hung up by 
the first family serves the Chickadee for a chair, a 
table and food also ; but the birds which visit this 
family eat a different food, which is spread out for 
them on a board nailed to the top of a post. They 
have different bills from those of either the bone- 
pickers or the Creepers. 

" Finches " do you ask ? " Seed eaters ? " 

Four or five different kinds of Finches come to this 
board, Tree Sparrows, Snowbirds, and occasionally 
some very pretty rosy-colored birds called Redpoll 
Linnets. If you were near enough to the table on 
which the food is spread, you could hear the seeds 
crack in their strong bills, and though their bills are 



2S BIRD WORLD. 

so thick they have short points and can pick up very 
small seeds. 

You see you can learn much about a bird's food by 
examining his bill. You would not need to ask a 
Sparrow or a Swallow what he would like to eat. But 
if you made out a bird's bill of fare by his bill alone 
you might make a very great mistake. 

Sometime perhaps you will read about the Toucan, 
a handsome South American bird whose bill is as 
thick as his body, and nearly as long. You would 
expect him to crack Brazil nuts w T ith ease, and w r ould 
be greatly surprised to see him in the forests of the 
Amazon chattering with his comrades in the tops of 
tall fruit trees, and holding in the end of his enor- 
mous beak fruit no bigger than a cherry. 

Birds' beaks are like tools; some, you can guess at 
once, are to be used for chiseling or digging ; how 
others are used it is harder to guess; and to under- 
stand some we have to find the owner and watch him 
at his work. 



"GULL DICK." 

ON the second of October, 1894, the men on a 
certain lightship in Narragansett Bay were 
looking eagerly to see whether an old friend had 
returned to spend the w r inter with them. 

For twenty-two years a Gull had appeared each 
October and flown about the ship in search of food, 
till April, when he had disappeared for the summer. 

The men on a lightship see so little to amuse them, 
that they soon noticed this Gull and offered him food. 
He on his part grew bolder until he learned to visit 
the ship regularly, as soon as morning came, and to 
remain near it until it was time for him to return to 
the rocks, where he spent the night. His favorite 
food was pork or fish cut into pieces as large as a 
hen's egg. He came closer to the ship than the other 
Gulls, and the crew recognized him by certain marks 
on his wings. 

There was much satisfaction aboard the lightship 
when " Gull Dick" appeared on this particular morning, 
but he seemed to have taken a long journey, and to 
have suffered somewhat from storms. 

His plumage was ragged and his movements were 
rather more feeble than they used to be. The men 



30 BIRD WORLD. 

said to each other, "' Gull Dick' is getting old. This 
may be his last winter with us." 

They gave him all the food he wanted, for he seemed 
very hungry. All through the winter he came regu- 
larly for his meals, driving off the other Gulls if they 
came too near his food. The crew fed him for the 
last time early in April ; the next day he doubtless 
started for the north, but what happened to him there 
no one knows. Old age, or a fierce storm, may have 
carried him off, or perhaps another bird attacked 
him ; at any rate, he failed to return in the fall, and 
the men in the lightship have lost their pet, " Gull 
Dick." 



TO A WATERFOWL. 

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek 'st thou the plashy brink 

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side ? 

Bryant. 



THE OWL. 

NO one can mistake an owl. In every country 
where owls are found (and they are found nearly 
everywhere), their wise-looking, solemn faces are well 
known. What is it that gives the owl this look, so 
grave that we have the saying "wise as an owl "? 

Look at the picture and notice that the eyes are 
placed far forward, and that around each large eye is 
a broad circle or disk of flat feathers. These circles 
of feathers make the eyes seem even larger, and go 
far toward giving the bird its solemn look. 

An owl's beak and claws are curved and strong. 
They resemble those of another family which includes 
the Hawks and Eagles, who also live by violence. 

Hawks, if they are robbers, are at any rate like the 
robber barons of old, dependent on their strength and 
swiftness as much as on surprise. The owl is more 
like a stealthy thief, and his success depends almost 
wholly on silence and secrecy. Twilight is his favor- 
ite time, or moonlight nights. His feathers, moreover, 
are edged with such soft down that an owl might pass 
directly over your head and you would hardly hear it. 

Think of the whistling of a pigeon's w 7 ings and you 
will see how remarkable this silence is. Here is, 



32 BIRD WORLD. 



then, the secret of the owl's success, — broad, power- 
ful wings on which he relies for stealthy, noiseless 
flight ; large eyes, like a cat's, which gather up all 
the dim light ; and sharp, strong claws which seize 
and tear his victim. An owl is a cat on wings. 

It was long believed that an owl could not see by 
day, and that he hunted on the darkest nights. Prob- 
ably neither statement is true. The owl can see as 
well, if not better, in the daytime than we can ; but if 
there is no light he cannot see at all. Why does he 
hide by day, you will ask, in the barn or belfry, or in 
the hollow tree, and only come out at dusk ? 

If a pickpocket had a certain mark by which every 
one knew him the moment he appeared, it would be 
easy to avoid him, and he would probably have to get 
his living by honest work ; the owl is known the mo- 
ment he is seen, and the fuss the little birds make 
when he happens to appear in the daytime would warn 
his victims and keep him hungry till he starved. 

No one who has seen an owl surrounded by a crowd 
of furious birds, scolding and flying excitedly about, 
can forget the scene. It seems as if they were calling 
him " rascal," " thief," and " murderer." Sometimes a 
cheerful little Chickadee, looking over an apple tree, 
puts its head into a hollow trunk, and instantly his 
feathers bristle, and he calls loudly to his friends, 
" There 's an owl in here, there 's an owl in here ! " 



THE OWL. 



33 




Owl. 

They answer in the greatest excitement, and all the 
birds round about come to peer in at the villain. 
You can imagine, therefore, that the owl does a better 
business, and leads a more peaceful life, if he puts off 
his tour of the orchard till evening. 



34 BIRD WORLD. 

But what do owls find in the twilight when the 
birds are asleep ? Have you ever heard a mouse at 
night running backward and forward in the walls ? 

Besides the mice w r ho share your house with you, 
there are many w r ild mice in the fields, and they are 
most active at night. In winter, if snow falls in the 
night, you may find their tracks all about in the morn- 
ing. Sometimes the track ends abruptly, there are 
signs of a scuffle, and perhaps a little blood mark may 
be seen in the white snow. This is where the poor 
mouse gave a pitiful shriek as the sharp claws of an 
owl pierced his back. 

Under the apple tree, in whose hollow trunk the 
owl spends the day, you will pick up curious little 
bunches — pellets they are called — of fur, and on 
opening one of them you will find the skull and other 
bones of a mouse or bird. Instead of picking the flesh 
off the bones as a hawk would, the owl crushes the 
skull and large bones, and swallows his victim head first ; 
then in his stomach the indigestible portions, the fur, 
feathers, or bones, are rolled into this curious pellet 
and cast forth. 

The commonest owl near cities is called the 
Screeqh Owl ; he is not larger than a small chicken, 
is reddish gray, with two tufts of feathers like ears. 
His note is a mournful but gentle wailing sound, and 
is often heard on moonlight nights in the autumn. 



THE OWL. 35 

One of these owls spent the winter once in the 
Washington Elm, and many people saw the little 
tenant of this famous tree sitting at the edge of his 
home and sending out his mournful " who, hoo, hoo, 
hoo" over the Cambridge Common. 

The larger owls live in the deep woods, and their 
hooting is loud and often terrifying to those who first 
hear it. In the frozen north lives the Snowy Owl, 
whose brownish feathers turn almost white in winter. 
On the western plains lives a curious member of the 
family, the Burrowing Owl. His home is a burrow, 
often the deserted home of some prairie dog. 

The owl has long been much abused and attacked 
for its sinful manner of life. It is only lately that 
people have discovered how much good most owls do. 
Many owls have been shot and their stomachs opened, 
but instead of small birds being the favorite food, the 
greater part was found to consist of mice and insects, 
both of w r hich injure the farmer's crops. 

We are sorry that the owl occasionally kills a song 
bird, but if he is really of such help to the farmer, 
ought we not to protect him, and when we hear his 
trembling voice in the still moonlight, think of him 
not so much as a midnight robber as a sort of police- 
man guarding the farms, gardens, and fields ? 




Scarlet Tanager. 

THE SCARLET TANAGER. 

THE male Tanager gives up its scarlet color when 
nesting time is over, but wears the velvety jet 
black of his wings. A dull olive green is the color 
of the female, and of the male when the scarlet is 
dropped. Its song resembles that of the Robin, but 
is not so free and clear. 




The Cedar Bird 

THE POLITEST BIRD. 



WE can all tell what would happen if we should 
throw a piece of bread into the street, under 
the trees where the Sparrows are chattering. What 



38 BIRD WORLD. 

a noisy group there would soon be about the bread ; 
and if some lucky fellow should fly off with a large 
crumb, how the others would hurry after, and leave 
him no peaceful moment in which to eat it. 

Country boys and girls know, too, how very ill- 
mannered even motherly old hens will be, and how 
undignified they will look if you throw a handful of 
grain into their midst. 

You will therefore be surprised, I feel sure, at the 
story I am going to tell you about the politest bird I 
know. No princess in a fairy tale could be brought 
up by her anxious parents to have better manners 
than this handsome bird. 

His name and his picture you will find on the 
opposite page, and some of you who live among the 
hills where the red cedars stand covered all winter 
with spicy smelling berries, will know from his name 
what he eats in winter and early spring. 

When you hear that he is called Cherry Bird as 
well, you will all know what he eats in summer, and I 
think you will wish you could get your cherries as 
easily as he can his. 

One morning in August a gentleman saw several 
Cedar Birds fly into a small tree on which bunches of 
wild cherries were hanging. On one limb he saw 
two birds sitting side by side, one of them with a 
cherry in his beak. 



THE POLITE SI' BIRD. 39 

Did he gobble it down as fast as he could, or did 
the second bird rush at him and snatch it from him ? 

You will hardly guess what happened. The bird 
who had the cherry hopped along the limb with a 
motion which w r ould almost do for a bow, and offered 
the cherry to the second bird. This one's manners, 
however, were just as good, and he, too, hopped back 
and returned the cherry to the first bird. 

The cherry was passed in this way from one to the 
other nearly half a dozen times, each bird making a 
hop and a bow, as if to say, " I cannot think of eating 
it; I would much rather that you took it." 

We must not expect to find such great politeness 
as these Cedar Birds showed common among birds ; 
in fact, their food is often so hard to obtain that we 
cannot blame a hungry bird who has little ones to 
feed for snatching it as quickly as he can. 

If there are no tables set for the birds, where each 
can find his food at his own place, and no one to set 
them an example, we shall hardly expect them to have 
good table manners. We can remember the Cedar 
Birds, however, and when next we see the noisy 
Sparrows we will beg them to take a lesson from their 
politer relatives. 




Downy Woodpecker. 

A FAMILY OF BACKWOODSMEN. 

TN the great forests of Maine and northern New 
1 York none of the sounds can be heard which are 
so familiar to us who live in busy towns — no factory 
whistles, no bells, no trains of cars with their noisy 



A FAMILY OF BACKWOODSMEN. 4 1 

engines. The stillness is broken only by the distant 
ring of the wood-chopper's axe. 

If you follow the sound, you may come upon a 
strong, broad-shouldered man, swinging a bright axe 
and covering the ground around the foot of a tree 
with the clean, sweet-smelling chips. A little distance 
off is another w r ood-chopper, giving such blows that 
you may sometimes hear him half a mile away. He 
also strews chips far and wide. 

The tool of this second woodman is more like a 
chisel, and he never parts with it, for it is his long, 
powerful bill. His neck is tremendously strong, so 
that by drawing back his head he can strike a blow 
which tears off great sheets of decaying bark, or even 
large chips of sound wood. 

This wood-chopper, or woodpecker, as he is com- 
monly called, is the largest of his family, and is only 
found where there are tall trees and plenty of them. 
Like the lumbermen, he is found only in the wild, 
unsettled parts of the country, and when the forests 
are cut down he moves on to fresh woods. 



THE DOWNY WOODPECKER. 



There are plenty of trees, as you know, among 
farms or even in the city parks, though they do not 
form dense forests. Here the smaller members of the 



42 BIRD WO RID. 

Woodpecker Family, one of whom you may see in the 
colored picture, find wood enough to keep them well 
employed. 

They visit the orchards and the groves, rapping and 
chiseling the dead or dying limbs. But why are they 
so busy, these hewers of wood? With what purpose 
do they cut into the trees or tear off the bark ? If 
you see one cutting in spring, and watch closely, you 
will find it working day after day at the same limb, 
and cutting into it a round hole, which finally becomes 
so deep that the bird disappears inside, coming out 
now and then with chips, or flying for food and rest. 

This hole is a nest. When it is deep enough, the 
mother lays five or six pure white eggs, not on straw 
or hair, but on fine chips which have fallen to the 
bottom. Here the young are hatched and fed. In a 
day or two they find the chips a rather hard seat, and 
climb by their feet to the sides of the hole, till they 
are ready to peep out into the world outside. 

Sometimes in the autumn you will see a wood- 
pecker again drilling a hole, this time for his winter 
retreat ; for the most of these birds spend the winter 
where they were born. Now, however, the birds work 
alone, for they have lived in the lonely woods so much 
that they do not care for company, and each bird 
keeps pretty much by himself in the daytime, and 
sleeps in his own home by night. 



A FAMILY OF BACKWOODSMEN. 43 

The woodpecker builds his house with his bill, 
just as Abraham Lincoln's father cut the logs for 
his house with his sharp axe. Besides this very 
important work, the woodpecker's bill is used in 
a way that is even more necessary. By its help he 
finds food for himself, his wife, and his children. 

When we hear him tapping at the dead limb, he is 
searching for insects, grubs, and beetles, that live in 
the decayed wood ; he bores into the wood till he 
reaches them, but then his bill cannot open wide 
enough in the small hole to seize the grub. What 
shall he do ? He has not gone as far as this to lose 
his prize. 

His tongue is as well suited for seizing the insect 
as his bill was for finding it. It is ^^_______^ 

like a whaler's harpoon, and though 

he keeps it in his bill he can dart it Tongue of woodpecker. 

out to twice the length of the bill ; 

and not only is it barbed to seize the grub, but it is 

coated with slime so that any little flies or eggs will 

be sure to stick to it. Thus, when he has found his 

dinner he darts out his tongue, strikes it into the 

unlucky grub, and the next moment has despatched 

that, and thrust it out for another. 



44 



BIRD WORLD. 




*«E 



THE FLICKER. 

The commonest woodpecker is in several ways so 
different from the rest of his family that he deserves 

special mention. He 
has a number of 
names, but perhaps 
is most commonly 
called the Flicker, 
from his note, and 
the Golden-winged 
Woodpecker, from 
the golden yellow 
of the under side 
of his wings. 

He is a gay bird 
if you see him near. He has a red band on his neck, 
black mustaches, and round, black dots over his gray 
breast. He lives more commonly among farms than 
in the deep woods, and in battle he would be no 
match for his cousins of the backwoods. 

Nor could the Flicker chop into the trees at such a 
rate as they, for his bill is more slender, slightly 
curved, and not so square at the tip. In fact, to get 
his favorite food he has no chopping to do. When 
he finds an ant-hill, he stands on the ground and, 
darting out his tongue, with accurate aim glues one 
after another of the helpless victims to its tip. 



Fig. 4. 



Flicker. 



A FA MIL J r OF FA CK WO ODSMEN. 4 5 

The little Downy Woodpecker is rarely or never 
seen on the ground, but the Flicker spends much of 
his time there. He sits differently, too, when he is 
on a tree ; not along it, like his relatives, but across, as 
most birds do. If you were to consult the head of the 
family, the big, black woodpecker of the north, he 
might shake his head and say, " I am afraid Cousin 
Flicker is degenerating. If he does not look out 
and mend his ways, he won't be a woodpecker at all 
before long." 

But how is little Downy able to stand as you 
see him in the picture, and how does he manage to 
dodge around the trunk of a tree, as I have often seen 
him do ? 

In the first place, his tail feathers are very stiff, and 
end in such sharp points that by pressing them close 
to the rough bark he can get a great deal of support 
from them. You w T ill hear later of another bird, who 
uses his tail to climb chimneys with. Then, too, his 
claws are arranged, not like a sparrow's, three in front 
and one behind, but in pairs, two in front and two 
behind. 

One of the hind pair, however, can be moved off 
to the side, and with this, if he is suddenly pursued, 
he can pull himself so quickly to the other side of 
the tree that even a hawk cannot strike him. 

There are many other interesting things to learn 



46 BIRD WORLD. 

about this Woodpecker Family. The Flickers, for 
instance, bring up their babies on a strange diet and 
feed them in a remarkable way. First, they eat the 
food themselves and prepare it in the stomach for the 
tender stomachs of the little ones. Then, when they 
see the wide-yawning beaks of their little nestlings, 
they put their own far down inside them and pump 
up the soft food from their own stomachs to give it to 
their little ones. 

None of the woodpeckers, as I have said before, 
are sociable birds. They do not feed in flocks, though 
the Flickers do get together a little, and the little 
Downy is often found in winter with a company of 
Chickadees, or other small winter birds. 

Many of the larger woodpeckers are downright 
savages, preferring the wild forests, keeping far from 
men, and w 7 hen caught, giving fierce blows with their 
powerful bills, and refusing to be tamed. 

A famous lover of American birds, Alexander Wil- 
son, caught a southern woodpecker once, called, from 
his pure white bill, the Ivory-billed. He took it home, 
and as he went through the streets, the constant cries 
of the bird made people stop and stare at him. He 
left it in his room, but when he returned, after an 
hour, the brave bird had nearly cut a hole through the 
window-sash, and would in a few minutes have escaped 
from his prison. Wilson then tied the bird to his 



A FAMILY OF BACKWOODSMEN. 



47 



table and went out again, only to find, on his return, 
that the table was ruined by the powerful blows of the 
bill. The bird refused to eat and at last died, brave 
and fierce to the end. 



^m 



- - 

m 



THE SAPSUCKER, OR YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER. 

This is the only one of the family that can justly be 
called the enemy 
of the farmer, and 
examination has 
proved that he 
does, on the 
whole, more good ^| 
than harm. 

Figure 5 shows 
the little pits he 
drills, in regular 
lines, in the bark 
of forest trees and 
sometime s i n 
apple trees; and 
when the pits fill 
with sap he 
drinks it as if it 
were nectar itself. 




Fig. 



. — Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. 

Harmful insects are attracted by 



48 BIRD WORLD. 

this sap, when it runs, and the number that are 
destroyed by the birds is thought to balance the loss 
to the tree, though it sometimes happens that the 
tree dies in a year or two from being so bled by them. 

Those of you who have seen maple sugar made 
from the sap of the sugar maple will think the bird 
very cunning to find a sugar camp for his own. 

Another woodpecker does an equally curious thing. 
I was riding one day in a park in southern California, 
and a tree was pointed out to me that had holes as 
close as these of the Sapsucker filled with acorns. A 
woodpecker had bored the holes and filled them for 
a winter store. The nuts were wedged in so tightly 
it would not have been easy to get them out. In 
the same line, but showing even greater intelligence, 
is the use in Mexico of a hollow stalk. The birds 
make holes and press acorns through them in autumn, 
so that they drop one by one till the hollow tube is 
filled. When other food fails the woodpecker draws 
out his acorns, not from the place at which he put 
them in but from the floor of his storehouse. 



A SECOND SPARROW STUDY. 

THIS time it is a little company of sparrows on 
the ground. Here we have all the ages and 
varieties. We call them brown birds; but see the 
gray, slate, tan, and other browns almost to black. 

Trace the colors in wing and tail feathers; note 
the shapes and sizes of patches. Did you know that 
the wing feathers were bird finger nails numbered in 
different species according to their need ? Pairs of 
tail feathers, too, have their convenient length, differ- 
ent in sparrows, swallows, and other species. Watch 
the sparrows as they rise into the air; some birds 
which fly well could not do it so easily. The tail 
helps to tell the story of rising and falling. 

Get the wing of a fowl and see from what bones the 
quills grow out — primary, secondary, and coverts; 
that is, quills of the hand, quills of the middle joint, 
and quills of the upper joint. 

The cut of the wings and tail would make a bird- 
study all by itself ; we can begin it while we are 
learning to~know the birds. 

The size of the bird is another point for study; we 
begin it when two or more birds are compared. 

By this time you have gained more than you can 



50 BIRD WORLD. 

tell in acquaintance and friendship with the Sparrow, 
and have help in getting a better look at other birds 
that have to make their photographs on your eye- 
cameras more quickly. Who knows that you may 
not have begun to be a naturalist like Wilson and 
Audubon in older times, or many men and women 
now? 

When you have a picture in your mind of what all 
sparrows do, you will add each season odd things that 
you may see but once, and that perhaps no one has 
seen but yourself. 

It is the fashion to find fault with our English 
Sparrows ; first, for coming to America at all, and 
then for thriving so. But the first ones did not come 
of their own accord, and it is not their fault that our 
air made their voices more sharp than we like. It 
may be true that they have driven away the song 
birds we love so well ; but even that, they may not 
have meant to do. One who should know as well as 
anybody has lately told us that the birds are begin- 
ning to understand English Sparrow ways, and soon 
we may have them all back again. I know one per- 
son who would miss the active, cheerful little brownies 
who stay when other birds are gone. 




THE SONG SPARROW. 



THE SONG SPARROW AND THE CHIPPING SPARROW. 

SOME birds are like the shyest wild flowers, living 
far from people's homes and very hard to find. 
Others are like the buttercups and dandelions, w T hich 
grow everywhere on our lawns and in city parks. I 
suppose by many people the jolly little dandelions are 
called weeds. One bird is almost like a weed. 

Though he, too, lives along the waysides and in 
the parks and gardens, no one would compare the 
Song Sparrow to a weed, for he gives much pleasure by 
singing a clear, merry song as soon as the February 
snows have melted. All summer he sings, and on 
into the fall. Even in the winter, on warm days, he 
sometimes shows that he remembers his little summer 
melody. 

Look at our beautiful representative opposite, as he 
rests on the big dock weed over the water and pours 
out his song. Would you know that he was a spar- 
row if you had no one to help you ? 

In the first place, he is about the size of an English 
Sparrow, though more slender, and his colors are 
a plain gray-brown. But you have learned that a 
female English Sparrow is also gray and brown. 
That is true ; many sparrows have these colors, but 



52 BIRD WO RID. 

the gray and brown of the Song Sparrow is in streaks 
or lines, not in unbroken patches, as in the English 
Sparrow. 

The slender figure, the long tail, and a general 
neat look will help you to tell the American bird 
from the foreigner. The Song Sparrow is shy, and 
will hide in the nearest bush, while you all know we 
can hardly call the English Sparrow shy. 



CHIPPING SPARROW. 

Another native sparrow is the Chipping Sparrow. 
He is still slimmer than the Song Sparrow, and wears 
a cap of dull reddish brown. 

The Song Sparrow builds on the ground, often 
hiding her nest under a tuft of grass or in a thicket. 
Chippy builds in bushes and always lines her nest 
with hairs from a horse's mane or tail. You do not 
see where the bird gets them ? She hunts along the 
fence or posts, w r here a horse stands, and finds them 
caught on some crack in the wood. 

You learned when you read about the English 
Sparrow that the male and female differed in looks, 
but the male Song Sparrow r s and Chipping Sparrows 
look just like the female. It is only when the male 
flies to the top of a bush or to the limb of a tree, and 
raising his head pours out a song from his little throat, 



THE SF ARROW. 53 

that you know which is which. Both these birds are 
much the color of dry leaves, grass, and the ground 
on which they spend their lives. Can you tell why ? 

The Chipping Sparrow's name refers to his song, 
which sounds like the syllable chip repeated quickly, 
— chip, chip, chip, etc. 

These two native sparrows have short, thick bills 
like that of the English Sparrow, but I think they 
make better use of them than he does. If you could 
examine the bill very closely, you would see that, 
though it is so short and thick, the tip is quite sharp 
and delicate. With this tip the sparrow picks up seeds 
so fine that you could hardly see them. Remember 
that their eyes are not only sharp, but are not so far 
from the ground as yours. These seeds are then 
crushed in their strong bills, the husk rolled out 
and the kernel eaten. All over the ground the little 
sparrows hunt, and many a weed which would grow 
up to plague the farmer is destroyed by them. Hun- 
dreds of insects, too, — moths, beetles, and grubs, — 
they find and eat. 

Let us record in our notebooks what we have 
learned by comparing the three sparrows we have 
met, — the English Sparrow, the Song Sparrow, and 
the Chipping Sparrow. 



HOW BIRDS PASS THE NIGHT. 

YOU must get up very early if you expect to find 
the birds still asleep ; they go to bed as soon as 
it is dark, and have had their first breakfast long 
before you are awake. 

No one need call them; the first faint light in the 
east finds them up, ready for a long and active day. 

If you should happen to go out before the birds are 
awake, or should startle them in the evening after 
they have gone to bed, where do you think you would 
find them, and how would their beds look ? 

Many of you, I have no doubt, think of them as 
sleeping all night in their nests, cuddling close to each 
other, and warmed and protected by their mother. 
It is true that for two or three weeks of their lives 
young nestlings sleep in the nests or holes where they 
have been hatched, and chicks which have no nests 
hide their downy bodies under their mother's wings ; 
but this lasts but a short time, and after the young 
birds leave the nests, at the age of two or three weeks, 
they never again sleep in a bed. 

No stretching out of tired limbs on comfortable 
mattresses, no soft pillows for tired heads, no tucking 
in, and no one to say " Good night." All these com- 



HO IV BIRDS PASS THE NIGHT. 55 

forts you look forward to when bedtime comes, but 
how would you feel to hear your mother say instead, 
11 It is bedtime now, stand on one leg and go to 
sleep "; or if she expected you to hang all night from 
a crack in the wall; or, worst of all, if your bed con- 
sisted of a pool of water, on which you were peace- 
fully to float with your head tucked under your arm ? 

Almost all the singing birds, after they leave the 
nest, perch on a twig as your canary does, the hind 
toe bent around to meet the front toes, the feathers 
fluffed out, the head snugly hidden under the wing. 

Parrots hang themselves up at night by their beaks, 
and woodpeckers in their holes and Chimney Swifts in 
chimneys hold themselves up by their feet and their 
stiff tail feathers. Hawks and owls stand upright 
while they sleep, but hens and turkeys bend their feet 
so that their breasts rest on the perch. The wading 
birds, herons, storks, and also the geese draw up one 
foot, hide it in the soft feathers, and close their eyes. 

Their balance must be easier to keep than ours. 
There are many things besides standing on one foot, 
which are easier for birds than for us, and positions 
which they take easily when awake naturally suit 
them best for sleeping. If you or I could float as 
easily as a duck, and if we wore waterproof down 
quilts, a night on an icy lake might seem as pleasant 
to us as one in a bed. 



THE BLUE JAY. 



N 




O bird can be so noisy when he tries, or so silent 
when he thinks best, as the Jay. If he is steal- 
ing, or thinks he may be suspected of any wrong, he 

slips off through the 
branches so quietly 
that, unless you 
catch sight of the 
splendid blue and 
white of his dress, 
you will hardly know 
what he is. 

But if he is with 
two or three jolly 
friends, and the weather is pleasant, he fills the woods 
with his screams and calls. They are not sweet 
sounds, but are not unpleasant to hear, particularly 
in winter, when few birds are here. Some are like 
a hawk's cry, and some like an ungreased wheel- 
barrow. 

While the Jay is making these sounds, he often 
hops up the tree, from one branch to the next, or 
accompanies his cries with an odd motion of his 
wings and tail. He is a good deal of a clown, and 



Fig. 6. — Blue Jay. 



THE BLUE JAW 57 

as a pet amusing. He learns to speak a few words, 
which is a great thing in a bird. 

It is not safe to leave valuables about where he can 
reach them, for he is a great collector. When he is 
free, he gathers acorns and chestnuts and stores them 
in hollow trees. 

The Jay has without doubt planted many trees 
where they w r ould not otherwise have been found, for 
he drops the nuts as he flies off with them, and if 
they fall into good soil the Jay's children's children 
long after may gather fruit from the trees that will 
spring up. 

The Jay's neighbors do not like him particularly, 
for he has one very bad habit. He cannot resist egg 
hunting. . But for this he might not be regarded with 
disfavor, for he sometimes renders good service. In 
fact, when an owl comes into the woods the Jay is 
often the first to discover him and announce his 
presence to the other birds. 

The Jay is closely related to the Crow in this coun- 
try, and in Europe to the jackdaw and magpie. The 
whole family are talkative, bustling birds, very light- 
fingered we should call them if they had fingers, but 
for all that they are amusing, and we should miss 
them if they were gone. 



BIRD HOMES. 

WE pity any boy who has no home ; kind people 
give money to provide a place where he can 
have a bed at night, a roof over his head, fire and food. 

Animals rarely have homes, and yet no one pities 
them. They have their hair, fur, or shell covering to 
keep off rain ; they sleep on the ground without 
catching cold, so that they really have no need of a 
home such as we are accustomed to. 

Certain animals, as you probably are already think- 
ing, do have caves, dens, or burrows in which they 
spend the night, the cold or wet weather, or to which 
they flee for safety. Most of these animals, you will 
see, are intelligent ; in fact, the more wisdom the 
animal has learned in Nature's great school, the more 
likely he is to have a place which is his own. 

Birds, you will say, are intelligent, and yet they 
spend the night or rainy weather in thick trees and 
have no homes. 

This is true of most of them, during most of their 
lives, and from what you know of feathers, you can 
yourselves tell why they do not need roofs or warmth. 
But imagine a bird without feathers. He would need 
warmth and shelter surely. Then think when it is 



BIRD IFOMES. 59 

that a bird lacks feathers. In the moulting season? 
Hardly ; few fall at a time, so that he is never wholly 
without covering. When the bird leaves the shell ? 
That is the time, surely, when he needs protection, 
and the wise and loving bird-mother goes to work, long 
before even her eggs are laid, to build the home for her 
young. This we call a nest ; it is really a nursery, is 
it not, a home, not for the parents, but for the young 
birds ? 



THE NEST AS AN OVEN. 

The nest is first used as an oven. What does the 
bird bake in this oven ? Where does she get the 
heat ? The last question is the easier and you can 
answer it yourself by holding your pussy cat against 
your cheek. Where does the warmth come from? 
Not all from the fur, but from the warm blood running 
through her veins. 

So the bird's little body is warm, warmer even than 
your cat's. To keep the warmth of the fire an oven is 
made with walls and a door ; so a nest is often built 
with walls ; the mother herself is the door. When 
she snuggles down on the eggs very little warmth can 
escape. 

But what is she baking? The eggs themselves. 
As the little seeds grow or develop when the earth is 



60 BIRD WORLD. 

warm, so the little bodies of the birds grow or develop 
in the warm eggs, till what looked like nothing but 
yellow and white liquid hatches out a little bird with 
claws, beak, and the beginnings of feathers. 

All this the bird feels, even if she does not think it 
as w r e think thoughts, so that when she is mated and 
her mate and she have chosen the best spot for their 
nest, she works very busily at building, or weaving, or 




Fig. 7. — Bird Homes. 

carpentering, whatever her nature tells her she can do 
best, and before the eggs are ready she has a nest 
in which to lay them. (The double nest in the pic- 
ture is quite a curiosity. It belonged to Chipping 
Sparrows.) 

I have spoken as if all birds felt alike and built 
nests which all served as ovens and as homes for 



BIRD HOMES. 6 1 

the young. No one, till he reads or learns a great 
deal about birds, can imagine what an extraordinary 
variety of nests there are. 

In the first place, a large number of the water birds, 
ducks, and divers, and all the family to which our hen 
belongs, do not need a nest in which the young shall 
stay. For their young come out of the shell warmly 
clothed in such thick down, that they can either 
paddle right off in the cool water or run about on the 
land ; we call them chicks, and the others, who are 
naked and helpless when hatched, we call nestlings. 
At night their mother's feathers are their beds; no 
need of a nursery for them. 

The eggs have to be baked, however, so that often 
the nests of such birds are warm and snug, especially 
if they are in damp or cold places. If the eggs are 
laid in sunny places, on the hot sea sand or rocks, for 
instance, there is no need of walls, and in such places 
the nest hardly deserves the name ; it is really noth- 
ing but a hollow in the sand or a shelf on the rocks. 

Many gulls lay their eggs in this careless way. 
There are certain cunning animals who like raw eggs 
very much, and they come prowling about, break the 
shells, and later eat young birds as well. 

Certain birds, to escape these four-legged thieves, 
have moved up a story and built platforms in the 
trees. These had to be pretty strong, however, for 



62 



BIRD WORID. 



the mother bird may be large, as in the case of the 
heron, so that the platform must hold her as well as 
the eggs. Here is real building to be done ; sticks to 
be laid in a more or less clever fashion. In a later 
lesson we shall see more of the ways of bird 
builders. 






Fig. 8. — a, Egg of Canada Jay ; b, of Crow Blackbird ; c, of Woodpecker. 



THE KINGBIRD. 



IN Wilson's time, Tyrant Flycatcher was the name 
by which this bird was commonly known, and this 
name, though clumsier, really tells more about his 
nature than Kingbird. 

A tyrant in Greece 
was a man who drove 
out the reigning king 
or rightful ruler. The 
eagle has long been 
called the King of 
Birds, though by this 
nothing more was 
meant than that he 
was among the most 
powerful and majestic 
birds. Even the eagle, 
however, is attacked and driven off by this Tyrant 
Flycatcher. 

Eagles are scarce to-day, and a battle between the 
two birds is a rare sight, but it is a common sight to 
see the Kingbird attack and drive off a Crow — a bird 
nearly three times as large as himself. 

Those of you that have read or heard about the 




Fig. 9. — Kingbird. 



62 



BIRD WORLD. 



the mother bird may be large, as in the case of the 
heron, so that the platform must hold her as well as 
the eggs. Here is real building to be done ; sticks to 
be laid in a more or less clever fashion. In a later 
lesson we shall see more of the ways of bird 
builders. 






Fig. 8. — a, Egg of Canada Jay ; £, of Crow Blackbird ; c, of Woodpecker. 



THE KINGBIRD. 



IN Wilson's time, Tyrant Flycatcher was the name 
by which this bird was commonly known, and this 
name, though clumsier, really tells more about his 
nature than Kingbird. 

A tyrant in Greece 
was a man who drove 
out the reigning king 
or rightful ruler. The s g 
eagle has long been J 
called the King of / 
Birds, though by this 
nothing more was 
meant than that he 
was among the most 
powerful and majestic 
birds. Even the eagle, 
however, is attacked and driven off by this Tyrant 
Flycatcher. 

Eagles are scarce to-day, and a battle between the 
two birds is a rare sight, but it is a common sight to 
see the Kingbird attack and drive off a Crow — a bird 
nearly three times as large as himself. 

Those of you that have read or heard about the 




Fig. 9. — Kingbird. 



64 BIRD WORLD. 

Spanish Armada remember how the little English 
ships outsailed the large, unwieldy Spanish vessels, 
ran close under their guns, fired, and were off again 
before the Spanish ships could return the fire ; so the 
Kingbird, mounting above the Crow, darts upon him 
from above and flies off before the clumsy Crow can 
strike him. 

Occasionally the Kingbird actually settles upon the 
Crow's head or back, and rides some distance before 
the Crow can shake him off. When you learn that 
the Kingbird attacks all birds, great and small, who 
come near him, and with a harsh twitter drives them 
away, you will fancy him a very unpleasant bird to 
have about. But you will have a greater respect for 
him when you learn that it is only in the breeding 
season that the Kingbird loses his temper so easily, 
and it is but fair to say that it is only birds that 
wander into the neighborhood of his wife and nest 
that he drives away so rudely. 

Flycatcher was the name by which he was known, 
for outside the swallows we have no more skilful fly- 
catcher. From the wire on which he is sitting, the 
post, or the mullein stalk, he flies out a short distance, 
makes a sweep, and returns to his perch. If you are 
near him, you hear at some time during his short jour- 
ney a sharp click, like the snapping of a watch case. 
That sound means death to some winged insect. All 




A PAIR OF KINGBIRDS. 



THE KINGBIRD. 65 

day long the Kingbird sits in some place where he 
can watch in the air about him, and all day long his 
bill closes over flies, gnats, and beetles. 

Many, if not most, of the insects which he seizes are 
at some time of their lives harmful to the farmer, so 
that the Kingbird's work in feeding himself and his 
children destroys thousands of the farmer's enemies. 

A Kingbird's nest is very easily found. You can 
imagine that a bird that guards his home so thor- 
oughly will take no great pains to conceal it. It is a 
rather bulky nest, often placed in apple trees, and 
looks very warm and comfortable. The outside is 
very apt to be ornamented with clusters of withered 
flowers of certain plants, and often long strings of 
pack thread hang from the nest. Inside, the eggs 
and the young rest on horsehair. 

The Kingbird's colors are brown and white, with 
a dark, almost black, head and tail. Curiously enough, 
a few feathers on the head are colored bright scarlet, 
but so few are the feathers and so well concealed, as 
a rule, that you would see many Kingbirds very near 
you without ever seeing this red patch. 

When the bird is angry, however, or excited, he 
can, like most fly-catchers, lift slightly the feathers of 
his head, so that probably many of the birds he has 
chased have seen more of the red than you have. 

The female Kingbird lacks these red feathers, but, 



66 BIRD WORLD. 

unlike the female Bluebird and Oriole, looks otherwise 
exactly like the male. See whether this was true of 
the other fly-catchers of which you have read. 

When the Kingbird's young have left the nest, and 
no longer need protection, the family stay in the 
north a very short time. By September they have 
left New England, and in the winter are in Cen- 
tral America. Who of you know why they should 
leave a country where there are winter frosts ? Is it 
because they themselves are afraid of cold ? 

I think you would all have liked for once to see the 
Kingbird get the worst of a battle, which Wilson long 
ago observed. We all like to see any one who is 
a little inclined to bully others given a lesson. This 
Kingbird attacked a Red-headed Woodpecker on a 
fence rail. Every time he swept down expecting to 
give the woodpecker a smart rap on the head, the 
woodpecker pulled with his third toe and slipped 
around the rail, so that the Kingbird struck only the 
empty air. The woodpecker saved himself in this 
way so many times that it seemed to Mr. Wilson that 
he was enjoying the game. It would not be strange, 
from what we know of the woodpecker, if he enjoyed 
a joke. We hardly expect the Kingbird to do so. 
All kinds of birds have their place, and we honor this 
one because he is brave and useful. 




Copyright, i8qj, by the Osprey Co. 

LOUISIANA WATER THRUSHES. 



THE WARBLERS. 

YOU have already heard about the Owls and the 
Woodpeckers, two families, the members of 
which are easy to recognize. The Warblers are 
another large Bird World family. They are not 
named, as you might well suppose, from their fine 
voices, for few of them can sing as well even as your 
old friend the Robin. But, like many birds who lack 
fine voices, the Warblers make up for their loss by 
fine feathers and a very dainty appearance. Yellow, 
orange, and blue are very common colors among 
them, and they are nearly all small, neat-looking 
birds. The Ovenbird, which gets its name from its 
oven-shaped nest, is a Warbler, and its cousins, the 
Water Thrushes, which you see on the opposite page, 
belong, of course, to the same family. You will find 
the pictures of three other Warblers in this book ; 
two of them are the Redstart and the Summer Yellow- 
bird. Can you find the third ? 



A CLEVER WREN, 

WHEN a pair of House Wrens decide that they 
want to build their nest in a certain place, it 
takes a good deal to prevent them from doing so. 
Sometimes several birds, who build in similar situa- 
tions, all want one particular spot, — a knot hole in 
a tree or a bird box. Bluebirds, White-bellied Swal- 
lows, and House Wrens often struggle violently in 
nesting time, and, as in other struggles, it is not 
always the largest bird that wins. 

A gentleman once saw a pair of wrens outwit some 
swallows in the following manner. There had been a 
long struggle over a box, built on the house, with the 
usual round hole for an entrance. The wrens had 
pulled twigs into the box. The swallows had 
promptly pulled them out. The scolding of the 
wrens and the sharp twitter of the swallows were 
heard all day about the box. 

One morning the wren was seen hauling along an 
unusually stout twig, as thick as a lead pencil. It 
was too heavy to carry straight to the box, but he 
managed to get it into the lower branches of a pear 
tree, and finally up to the box. Here he was met by 
the she-bird, and together they pulled one end into 



A CLEVER WREN. 69 

the hole, and there they fastened it, so that it blocked 
the entrance. When the swallows returned, they 
could not squeeze past it. They tried to pull it out, 
but it had evidently been secured inside. The little 
wrens could push past easily ; and having now the 
field to themselves, raised their brood in peace. 

All day long the wren mother goes backwards and 
forwards bringing flies and insects or whatever food 
she can find. A lover of birds once watched this 
bird, and saw 7 her go 278 times in a day. 

A number of wrens' nests are unused. One 
wonders whether they are built to take refuge in 
during severe weather. 



AUDUBON AND THE HOUSE WREN. 

A Wren lived just outside Audubon's window, and 
amused him with his bright song. " Having procured 
some flies and spiders," says Audubon, " I now and 
then threw some of them towards him, when he would 
seize them with great alacrity, eat some himself, and 
carry the rest to his mate. In this manner he became 
daily more acquainted with us, entered the room, and 
once or twice sang while there. One morning, sud- 
denly closing the window, I easily caught him and 
held him in my hand, and finished his likeness, after 
which I restored him to liberty." 



THE WREN. 

YOU have all laughed at the old woman who lived 
in a shoe ; but to a House Wren this would not 
seem so strange a home. Let me tell you a few of 
the odd nesting places this bird has chosen. 

Generally she builds in a hole in a tree or in a bird 
box, but almost anything which is hollow inside seems 
to do. One nest that I saw was in the broken end of 
a waterspout. Instead of water coming out of it, the 
little wrens slipped in and out, carrying sticks and 
straws for a nest. 

Another bird thought the inside of an awning 
would make a fine home, but when the middle of the 
day came, the awning had to come down to shade the 
windows, and all the rubbish rolled out. The next 
morning the bird was up early, and before noon had 
collected another mass of sticks. Day after day the 
wren kept up the attempt, declining to make use of 
a box which was nailed up near by. 

Perhaps the strangest story comes from Washing- 
ton. A workman hung his coat up for a little while, 
and when he took it down and put his hand in the 
pocket, he was astonished to find sticks and feathers 
in it, and even more so when a wren appeared near 



THE WREN. 



71 



by and scolded him 
furiously for presum- 
ing to wear his own 
coat. 

He was a kind- 
hearted man and would 
gladly have lent the 
wren his coat pocket 
if he had been able to 
do without it; how- 
ever, it came out all 
right, for he hung up 
an old coat instead, 
and the happy birds 
laid their eggs and 
hatched them in the 
place of their own 
choosing. 

House Wrens and 
cats are great enemies. 
The moment the little 
bird spies the cat 
prowling about, she 
chatters and scolds, so that all the neighboring birds 
know what the trouble is about. I am afraid Pussy 
has given the wren good cause now and then to fear 
and dislike her. 




Fig. 10. — Long-billed Marsh Wren. 



72 BIRD WORLD. 

Our wren is a cousin of Jenny Wren, the favorite 
of all English children. Jenny is a smaller bird, and 
she stays in England all the year, while our wren 
leaves us in the fall for the south, where she can find 
the insects which she eats. 

Like the swallow and the Bluebird, the wren seems 
glad to make his home near the homes of people, and 
no one has ever accused him of doing anything but 
good to the farmer or gardener. 

To find the birds of the picture, — the Long-billed 
Marsh Wrens, — we must go to some soft, wet place, 
which in early spring may require the use of high 
rubber boots. These birds are near cousins of the 
House Wren, but choose to live among the cat-tails. 
They have learned to weave, and instead of nesting 
in holes or boxes they make their homes of rushes. 
Regular basket-work it is, and the almost globular 
nests hung in the reeds may hold eight or nine 
chocolate eggs. 



AT THE BATH. 

HAVE you ever watched a canary going through 
its morning bath ? The thoroughness of the 
cleansing is only matched by the bird's enjoyment of 
it. But there is as much more pleasure in seeing a 
free bird go through its daily wetting and drying and 
preening as there is in every other free act of a free 
bird. 

Our little street gamins, English Sparrows, choos- 
ing a mud puddle rather than go a little out of town 
for a clean pool, are not worthy to represent the birds 
of dainty ways. 

One of my pleasant bird memories is of a little 
stream, hardly more than a handbreadth wide, flowing 
down a hill slope, from a spring in the neighborhood 
of Saratoga, and making a little nest in the hollow of 
a rock. I could almost have enclosed the brooklet 
with my arms and measured its depth with my lead 
pencil ; but for pretty sentiment, and the pleasure it 
gave to the comers and goers at Elim, the summer 
cottage of my friend, it will " go on forever." I could 
fancy the birds saw from afar that single bright spot 
on the steep hill — a jewel, dropped by a princess 
of another world, with a ribbon on either side. 



74 BIRD WORLD. 

The birds did not come to it as early in the morn- 
ing as I should have expected ; perhaps they liked to 
wait till the water should be warmed a little, or per- 
haps in Bird World a bath after eating is not thought 
to be unhealthy. However that may be, from eight 
o'clock, in rapid turn, in ones, twos, seldom more than 
threes, they kept the little " Bath " in constant use till 
evening twilight. 

Such water lovers some of them were ! They made 
it a shower bath by sending the splashes high over 
their heads. They shook each feather in the water 
for wetness and out of it for dryness. So clear was 
the pure spring water, that it seemed like bathing in 
a mirror. 

Some of the birds would stop and preen their feath- 
ers before they left the spot, but others would go to 
the trees to complete their dainty toilets. Boys and 
girls who think it a burden to keep their hair in 
proper fashion should take a lesson from the birds. 
Feathers have their price in care-taking as well as 
other beautiful apparel. 

It is not probably true that birds are afraid of cold 
water. Tree Sparrows will spend from three to five 
minutes, it is said, in water that flows directly from 
melting snow, acting all the while as if the fluttering 
of their wings and tails was perfect glee. 



THE CATBIRD. 

He sits on a branch of yon blossoming tree, 

This mad-cap cousin of Robin and Thrush, 
And sings without ceasing the whole morning long ; 

Now wild, now tender, the wayward song 
That flows from his soft, gray, fluttering throat ; 

But often he stops in his sweetest note, 
And shaking a flower from the blossoming bough, 
Drawls out, " Mi-eu, mi-ow ! " 

Edith M. Thomas. 

HOW often it happens that people are known by 
their least agreeable trait. The harsh catcall, 
"Mieu, miow! " is the least musical of the many notes 
the Catbird utters. By his own song he is worthy a 
place with singers of highest rank. It is this that 
exasperates us so ; but is it so much more strange 
that he does not always employ his best powers than 
that we do not live up to our best all the time ? 

The Catbird is the Mocking Bird of the north. 
May and June are the months when his song seems 
to come from the heart. Later in the season he 
amuses himself with a variety of vocal entertain- 
ments. 

If you can read into his little picture, — slate color 
for the upper parts, lighter slate and gray for under 



76 BIRD WORLD. 

parts, and black for a crown, and a tail that the owner 
is continually jerking, — you may surprise yourself 
by discovering the bird some day, for he is by no 
means unfamiliar with the thickets around village 
homes. If you should think you had done so, make 
quite sure by looking for a reddish patch on the 
under side of the tail, and a black bill. 

It is said that a cat is fonder of places than of 
persons. Not so our little Catbird, as a story told by 
Miss Merriam has shown us. It is of a gentle old 
lady, who lived in a cottage behind an old-fashioned 
garden, whose rose-covered trellises, lilacs, and other 
shrubs and trees made it a happy spot for a resting 
place or a summer home both for birds and people. 

The Catbird was the " comrade and favorite " of the 
owner of the cottage, who loved all birds and flowers. 
The bird would call for her in the morning, till she 
came to answer him wdth a whistle ; then he would 
be satisfied, and would find a perch and pour out his 
morning song. This would be repeated many times 
a day in the little rests he took from his domestic 
duties. 

It was plain that the bird was fond of her society, 
for when it happened one summer that the lady was 
away from home when he came north, and the place 
looked deserted, he found another place in which 
to build his nest. When the old lady returned, she 



THE CATBIRD. 



77 



missed her pet of many years, but as summer went 
on, was sure that it was he who sometimes appeared 
and sung to her in the garden at sunset. 

All the bird students agree that the Catbird loves 
to have a listener. 

" Come forth ! " my Catbird calls to me, 
" And hear me sing my cavatina " — 




Fig. ii. — Catbird. 

Lowell writes, and there are evil-minded critics who, 
therefore, blame the bird for vanity ; but let us agree 
with those who love the merry song and the good- 
natured but capricious little singer. 

This is one of the birds who has been so often on 
trial for his life, because his ways have been so little 



78 BIRD WORLD. 

known. Such an individual should have one of the 
best of lawyers to plead his case. Several have 
volunteered their services, and Mr. Nehrling's testi- 
mony rests on special study. He says that the bird's 
usefulness as an insect destroyer is so great that the 
food it steals is of little importance, and that "for 
every cherry it takes, it eats a thousand insects." 



TO A SKYLARK. 



Joyous as the morning, 
Thou art laughing and scorning ; 
Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest. 

Happy, happy liver, 
With a soul as strong as a mountain river, 
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, 
Joy and jollity be with us both ! 
Alas ! my journey, rugged and uneven, 
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind ; 
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, 
As full of gladness and as free of heaven, 
I, with my fate contented, will plod on, 
And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done. 

C. Rossetti. 



NEST BUILDERS. 

AS we said in an earlier lesson, the building of a 
nest is a matter requiring skill to plan and deft- 
ness to execute. We should do such work with 
hands, but a little thought will show you how unfit a 
bird's toes are for it. 

The bill is the bird's best tool, and is, as you have 




Fig. 12. — Osprey's Nest. 



Copyright, Osprey Co., 1897. 



learned, a chisel, a nut cracker, and a spade ; but you 
may have yet to learn that it is a mason's trowel, and 
even a needle. 

Hollows in the ground, a bunch of seaweed, rude 
platforms of sticks are among the simplest kinds of 



80 BIRD WORLD. 

nests. The Osprey, or Fishhawk, uses plenty of 
material but not much skill, and as he adds to his 
nest each year, it often becomes a huge pile, big 
enough to fill a wagon. Such a Fishhawk's nest is 
shown in Fig. 12. 

Before I describe the more wonderful woven struc- 
ture which the word nest calls up to our minds, let me 
speak of two more styles of building, — the holes in 
sand or w r ood, and the plastered nests of mud. 

The woodpecker's chisel enables him to make a 
hole to order where he wants it, but many other birds, 
such as Bluebirds and owls, love the natural hollows 
in decayed limbs. 

The birds that live in holes in the earth generally 
choose sand; you can imagine why they prefer it to 
clay ; and river banks give them a chance to build 
horizontally rather than perpendicularly. 

What advantage is this to them ? 

One bird, the Burrowing Owl, digs out a long, 
winding passage underground, at the end of which 
he has a chamber for his nest. 

The mud nests, or plastered nests, are built of wet 
mud, taken in the bird's bill and stuck to rocks or 
w T alls of houses. Eave Swallows build a nest shaped 
something like a bottle, all of grains of mud. These 
birds gather about mud puddles in May, dipping in 
their bills, fluttering, twittering, lighting, and flying 



NEST BUILDERS. 8 1 

off, a happy and pretty company of masons. Some- 
times in very wet weather their bottle-shaped homes 
crumble and fall to pieces, though they, too, know 
that eaves will serve them as an umbrella. 

We come now to the woven nests. Of these there 
are so many and of such variety that whole books 
could be written about them. Very few, however, are 
more graceful and more cleverly built than our own 
Oriole's ; the nest is so common on our elms that we 
do not realize how wonderful a work it is. 

Look at a piece of felt, such as is used in making 
soft hats. You see it is made of small threads closely 
woven together. An Oriole's nest is like a felt pouch. 
First, the Oriole fastens strong string or thread, which 
he has twitched off from fibrous bark, to the twigs to 
w r hich he has chosen to hang the pouch. These serve 
as a framework for the nest and must be very strong. 
How does he fasten them ? Just as you would, except 
that he ties his knots with his beak. He makes a 
loop, sticks the end through, and pulls it tight. 

When the skeleton is finished, it show r s the depth 
and general shape of the nest. This is generally as 
long as a man's hand. The bottom is rounded and 
the neck narrowed a little. Now comes the w r eaving. 
Short threads snatched from ropes, clotheslines, bits 
of tow or milkweed stalks are woven in and out 
through the first long threads, till the nest is so thick 



82 BIRD WO RID. 

and strong that it often hangs through the rain and 
snow of two winters after the bird has used it. 

There is generally a lining in the round end on 
which the eggs are laid. Here the mother sits swing- 
ing in the wind till the young are hatched, and there 
they swing like sailor boys in a snug hammock. 
The leaves above them keep off the sun and rain. 
What bird could wish for a better home ? 

Few American birds are such skilful weavers as the 
Oriole, and none dare to hang their nests so close to 
the ends of twigs. The other weavers, too, generally 
use coarser material. Instead of fine woolen or silken 
threads they use roots, grass, tough barks, or even 
twigs ; but many make wonderfully neat nests for all 
that. We have room to speak of only two before 
we leave America and hear about some foreign nest 
builders. 

The Humming Bird's nest is as tiny as its owner; 
it is a little cup saddled on a twig and generally 
covered on the outside with the same gray lichens 
which grow on the twig itself. At a distance it looks 
like a little gray knot on a knotty bough, and most 
eyes, even if they rest on it, fail to see it. 

The Song Sparrow and many of his family build 
on the ground and weave into the nest so much dry 
grass that the nest, half hidden under a tuft, is very 
hard to make out. It is only when the mother bird 



NEST BUILDERS. 83 

flies out from under our feet, as it were, that we see 
it and its pretty speckled eggs. 

In foreign countries nests are built in much the 
same styles and for much the same purposes as here. 
When the weather is warm, of course the nests need 
not be so warmly built ; but wherever little naked birds 
are born, shelter must be provided for them, and 
skilful bills are cutting, weaving, plastering, or even 
sewing to make a home for the coming young. " Sew- 
ing ? " you ask, " Can a bird sew ? " Yes, and the bill 
is its needle. The little bird who sews lives in India, 
and is so famous for its skill that people call it the 
Tailor-bird. It builds in the gardens, and several 
people have written about it. Here is what one 
gentleman says : " It makes its nest of cotton, wool, 
and various other soft materials, and draws together 
one leaf or more, generally two leaves, on each side 
of the nest and stitches them together with cotton, 
either woven by itself, or cotton thread picked up, 
and after passing the thread through the leaf it makes 
a knot at the end to fix it." 



THE SWALLOWS. 

How can I tell the signals and the signs 
By which one heart another heart divines ? 

WHAT would n't we give to know what it is they 
are saying! — these two happy birds. I have 
watched pairs and companies of swallows ever since 
I was a child, and I cannot yet find any w r ords that 
tell all that I think it is. 

A year or two ago I watched a swallow family at 
Baker's Island, a few miles out from the North Shore 
of Massachusetts Bay, for a whole afternoon, just 
when the young ones were proving their wings and 
learning to fly. My piazza faced the bay from the 
top of a cliff, and, to keep the Island cows from going 
too near the edge, a single rail fence had been set up. 
It was from one of these rails that the start was to be 
made and the lesson given. 

A few yards away my family were learning to sw 7 im, 
and I looked from one bit of teaching to the other, 
like a school inspector. I am sure I do not need to 
tell which class toolc the prize of my highest approval. 

The swallow children were so near in size to their 
parents, that I only knew the teachers by their steady 
flight. There were three in the class, but I was quite 



*V^ ' * 0**\; 






-M^P 


y. 





A HAPPY PAIR. 



THE SWALLOWS. 85 

sure that one stayed in its place on the rail till almost 
the last moment. I tried to make myself acquainted 
with each, but a shout from the swimmers and bathers 
would draw my attention to them just at a critical 
time, and I could not be perfectly sure the flyers did 
not change places. What might a real bird student 
have done, if he had been interested to know the 
swallow's ways? 

He might have searched the little island over to 
learn where this family went when the lesson ended, 
and seen what they did the next day, and the next ; 
and if he had watched and studied with heart as well 
as eyes, there might have been something to give to 
bird-lovers in a poem or story. This is what is being 
done to make Bird World better understood. 



THE DEPARTURE OF THE SWALLOW. 

And is the swallow gone ? So the freed spirit flies ! 
Who beheld it ? From its surrounding clay 

Which way sailed it ? It steals away, 

Farewell bade it none ? Like the swallow from the skies. 

No mortal saw it go : W 7 hither? wherefore doth it go ? 

But who doth hear 'T is all unknown ; 

Its summer cheer We feel alone 

As it flitteth to and fro ? That a void is left below. 

William Howitt. 



THE BARN SWALLOW. 

WHEN a farmer builds a new barn, he plans 
stalls for his horses, stanchions for his cows, 
pens and coops for the pigs and hens, and often in 
the attic he cuts holes and builds little ledges for 
pigeons. 

One guest who is quite sure to wish to come he 
hardly ever arranges for ; but when the barn is fin- 
ished and its great door stands wide open, some soft 
May day, the swallow flies in and out, and, perching 
on the wide beams under the roof, chooses a place for 
his nest. One farmer that I knew, thought of the 
swallows when he built his barn, and drove a horse- 
shoe into a beam. Each year the swallows build a 
nest on this support. 

Although the farmer does not exactly invite the 
swallows, yet nearly all farmers are glad to have them 
come, glad to hear them twittering on the ridgepole, 
glad to see them flying over the grass or up into the 
bright sky. " The swallows haye come " is one of 
the best bits of news which the farmer's children can 
bring to their mother. It tells that summer is near, 
just as the first Bluebirds brought notice that winter 
was over. 



THE BARN SWALLOW. 



87 



You have read already about the mud nests of the 
swallows ; in them the young are fed, and from them 
the young are coaxed by their parents to try their 
wings. They fly only a short distance at first, their 
parents flying past them, calling and showing them 
how easy it is. Soon the wings of the little ones 
grow stronger, and before many days the young are 
skilful enough in the 
air to take food from 
their parents while they 
are flying. This is one 
of the prettiest sights 
to be seen in Bird 
World. The parent 
gives a note which 
means " Come on, I 
have something for 
you." The young bird 
flies toward the old 
one, and as they meet 
both fly upward, their bills touch, and the food passes 
from one to the other. 

Wonderful wings swallows have, and wonderfully 
skilful and graceful is their flight. Backward and for- 
ward they pass, now with a sudden turn to the side, or 
a little upward one over a hedge, turning corners, slip- 
ping between men and horses, all without an effort. 




Fig. 13. — Swallow. 



88 BIRD WORLD. 

When the autumn comes, the tireless wings are 
going to carry them to Mexico or Yucatan, where 
they will find old friends, Kingbirds and Bobolinks, 
and where new insects will taste as good to them as 
New England flies and gnats. 

Watch a swallow hunting! Every time he turns 
quickly in his course, to this side or to that, another 
insect has passed into that wide-open mouth. Count 
them for a minute. The number quickly runs into the 
tens and twenties. Now remember that a swallow is 
on his feet, we should say, — on his wings, the swallows 
would call it, — from four o'clock in the morning to 
six at night, and longer in the June days. Multiply 
the minutes; fourteen times sixty is over eight hun- 
dred, is it not ? Now, supposing he caught ten insects 
a minute, — and this is probably too few, — you can 
see that a dozen swallows would make away with a 
large army of insects, nearly all of which would plague 
the cattle, or feed upon the farmer's fruit or vege- 
tables. The farmer has no better or more hard- 
working servant than the swallow. He has a good 
right, has he not, to the shelter, for a month or so, of 
the farmer's barn ? 



THE RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD. 



Fust comes the blackbird clatterin' on tall trees, 

And settlhV things in windy congresses. 

Lowell. 

THERE is a little beetle that lives on water-lily 
leaves ; and if any insect were safe from attack, 
you would think it might be this one. Several times, 
however, I have seen j 

Red-winged Black- 
birds light on the 
leaves, as they floated 
on the water, and pick 
off the beetles. This 
shows us how the 
birds pry into every- 
thing, and attack our 
insect enemies in every 
part of nature. 

The Red-wing is 
never far from the water, and often builds his nest in 
the bushes or sedges that grow over slow streams 
or ponds. In March and April he sits for hours on 
the top of some bush, spreading his wings to show 
his scarlet # epaulets, and singing his loud, cheerful 




Fig. 14. — Red-winged Blackbird. 



90 BIRD WORLD. 

" Okalee." He has many other notes and whistles ; 
in fact the blackbird is a noisy and talkative bird, 
particularly at bedtime, and flocks of them make the 
marshes ring before they settle down to sleep. If 
a larger bird flies into the neighborhood, the black- 
birds chase him, calling and whistling, much disturbed 
till he has disappeared. 

The winter freezes the northern swamps, and 
drives the blackbirds into southern states, but the 
first warm March morning finds them in the north 
again. The males come first in great flocks, and 
wait for their partners. It is always a question 
whether the first spring bird will be a Bluebird or 
the Red-winged Blackbird. 

Later in this book you will read about Bird Fami- 
lies, different kinds of birds who are related to each 
other, just as you have distant cousins having different 
names. When you come to know what birds make 
up the family to which the Red-winged Blackbird 
belongs, you will have some very interesting acquaint- 
ances. The Bobolink, the Oriole, the lazy Cowbird, 
and the Meadow Lark are among them. 

What different habits these creatures have ! One 
nests in the long grass, one in tall elms, one in the 
swamps, and one makes no nest at all. 



ABOUT BIRDS' TOES. 



THE animals in Wonderland, you remember, were 
always very much surprised that Alice was not 
constructed just as they were themselves; in fact they 
seemed rather to look down upon her because she 
was different. 

If Alice had met a large number of our North 
American birds, I think they would have been very 
scornful about the uselessness of her toes. We may 
think of them as saying, " What can you do with 
them?" 

" Can you catch fish or mice ? " " No ! " Then 
the hawks and owls would have turned their backs. 

" Of course you can climb with them ? " " No." 

Then the woodpeckers would have nothing 
more to say. 

A fat duck would waddle up and comfort 
her by saying that she 
thought climbing perfectly 
absurd and dangerous as 
well. " But of course your 
toes are webbed to help you 
swim," she might add. If you were Alice, you would 
have to confess that you could not swim very well 




Fig. 15. — Duck's Foot. 



9 2 



BIRD WORLD. 



anyway, and that you used your hands more than 
your feet. 

Neither do you scratch for seeds or worms, like 
the hen, nor perch, like the sparrow. 

An ostrich should, at any rate, sympathize with you, 
for she uses her toes mainly to walk on, as you do 
yours. 

None of the birds, however, have as many toes as 





Fig. 16. — Ostrich Foot. 



Fig. 17. — Foot of Song Sparrow. 



you have. Four is the largest and commonest num- 
ber, usually arranged so that three toes point forward 
and one back. This arrangement is best suited to 
perch with ; as one writer says, it makes the bird's 
foot a kind of hand, the hind toe acting like your 
thumb, which would help very little if it could not be 
brought up under your fingers. 

In the hawks (see Fig. 46, p. 187) the toes are wide 
apart, so that a large object can be clutched and held 
firmly. The Fishhawk, which has to seize a very 
slippery prey, can turn one toe sidewise, and all the 



ABOUT BIRDS' TOES. 



93 



owls can do the same, so that they have a very firm 
grasp. 

In the woodpeckers and parrots there are always 
two hind toes, but some other tree-climbers, like the 
little Brown Creeper, get up a tree just as cleverly 
with the usual arrangement of toes. 

The little sooty brown birds, who live in your 
chimneys and are called Swifts, from their great speed, 





Fig. 18. — Grouse Foot. 



Fig. 19. — Foot of Flicker. 



have short, weak toes which they use very little. In 
England there is a swift whose four toes all point 
forward, but the bird spends nearly all day on the 
wing, so that he does not need his feet for perching. 
Notice the short h^nd toes of the duck and the grouse 
(Figs. 15, 18), birds which flatten out the foot in 
walking. 

The hen's hind toe, as you must know, does not 
touch the ground, and in some birds this toe has 
been used so little that it has practically disappeared. 



94 



BIRD WORLD, 



Many birds, therefore, have only three, and generally 
these are all front toes. 

Beside the Swift, who spends so much time in the 
air, there are two American birds who cannot perch 
in the usual way; they are Whip-poor-will and the 
Night Hawk. Their toes are too short to grasp a 
limb stout enough to hold them, so they rest either 
on the ground or along, not across, a large limb. 








/ / 



/ 



Fig. 20. — Chimney Swift. 



BOB WHITE. 

HALF a mile away you can hear Bob White whis- 
tling his name, " Bob White ! " " Bob White ! " 
The sound is so distinct that dogs, when they hear it 
first, show that they take it for the call of a human 
being. Following the sound and keeping a sharp 
lookout, you may find him on the fence rail, and if 
you creep cautiously near, you will see what a hand- 
some bird he is. 

His throat is pure white, his head marked with 
black and white, and his short, fat body a rich brown. 
Why is he whistling so clearly ? 

If you answer him, — for you can learn to w r histle 
the notes almost as clearly as he does, — you may see 
a very fierce little Quail come flying to the spot where 
you are hidden, for the whistling of the Quail, like the 
drumming of the Grouse, is a call to his mate and a 
challenge to all his rivals. 

Under the blackberry vines, along the wall, or in a 
tuft of grass in the open fields, his mate is covering, 
or trying to cover, a set of eggs which it would be a 
joy for you to see — row within row of pure white 
beautiful eggs, sometimes as many as twenty in a 
nest. 



96 BIRD WORLD. 

When the little ones hatch, they come out already 
clothed with down, and run off with their mother, like 
young Grouse or barnyard chickens. Their parents 
look after them, however, very carefully, teaching 
them to hide in the grass at the approach of hawks 
or prowling cats. 

Like the Grouse, the Quail rarely leaves the fields 
where he was born ; but, unlike the Grouse, the flock 
or covey, as it is called, generally keep together all 
winter, and instead of roosting on trees they have a 
very sociable habit of spending the night. The whole 
company squat on the ground close together, heads 
out, their tails forming the center of a circle. In this 
way they are kept warm and can be on the lookout 
for danger. 

One winter — a sad winter for Quails — there was a 
heavy snow which covered the ground deeply for 
weeks ; when it finally melted, a little circle of quail 
bodies was found dead. The snow had smothered 
and buried them as the ashes buried the people of 
Pompeii. 

When the winter is not too severe, the Quails scratch 
the snow away, hunting for seeds and grain. If they 
have not been hunted or pursued too much, they 
sometimes become very tame, and come shyly into 
the barnyard or about the house for food. 

In the summer, berries and corn and wheat that 




PART OF A QUAIL FAMILY. 



BOB WHITE. 97 

have dropped from the ears are crushed by their 
short, stout bills, and they fill out their daily bill of 
fare with grubs and insects. 

The wings of a Quail, though strong, are short in 
comparison with the weight of his body. They are 
also somewhat concave, like the inner side of a watch 
crystal, so that when the bird flies the rapid strokes 
and the shape of the wing make a loud w r hirring 
sound. 

Quails are not as common as they once were. Too 
many of them, instead of wandering about the pas- 
tures, hang in the markets, their pretty feathers soiled 
and a little stain of blood telling the story of their 
death ; but if the extermination were to become com- 
plete, the only ones to be benefited would be such real 
enemies to our crops as the potato beetle and the cut- 
worm. In Wisconsin they were brought back by a 
state law, as song birds were said to be in Killing- 
worth. 



AUDUBON AND THE PHCEBES. 

A PAIR of Phcebes once built in a cave near 
Audubon's house. He visited them so often, 
and was so careful not to frighten them, that they 
finally paid no more heed to his presence than if he 
had been a post. He was therefore able to learn 
much about their manner of life ; he found out how 
often eggs were laid, and how long the female sat 
upon them. As the young grew up he handled them 
frequently, so that they, too, grew accustomed to him. 

As they grew older he tied bits of thread to their 
legs, but these they always pulled off. When, how- 
ever, they became so used to the threads that they 
allowed them to remain on their legs, Audubon 
wound a silver thread on the leg of each, "loose 
enough not to hurt " them, " but so fastened that no 
exertion of the birds could remove it." Soon the 
birds left the nest and in the autumn went south. 

The next spring Audubon hunted up all the 
Phoebe's nests in the neighborhood and caught the 
females as they sat upon the nest. Do you not 
imagine that he was pleased to find that on the legs 
of two birds was a light, silver thread ? 



HOW YOUNG BIRDS GET FED. 

ONE afternoon in July I watched six little Barn 
Swallows sitting on the roof of a barn. They 
had evidently left their nest only a few days before, 
but their wings were already strong enough to carry 
them back to the roof if they fluttered off. 

Soon the father approached, and was greeted by 
six gaping mouths. The little bird sitting nearest 
him got the mouthful, and an instant later got another 
from the mother. Six times in succession he was fed, 
neither parent regarding the five other yellow throats. 

This seemed unfair, and foolish as well. I thought 
little birds must be starved one day and fed too full 
the next. I waited a few moments and the mystery 
was solved. The little fellow who had been getting 
so much soon had all he wanted. The next time the 
parents came his mouth was shut, and one of the other 
five got the mouthful. 

When a cat or a dog has had enough, he stops eat- 
ing. It must be so with little birds ; when one has 
had enough, he shuts his mouth and eyes and dozes 
while his brothers and sisters get their meal. I fear, 
though, that when there are six mouths to fill, the 
last is hardly closed before the first opens again. 



FOOD OF BIRDS. 

BY carpentering, by painting, by selling goods, — 
by so many different kinds of work that it would 
be hard to make a list of them all, — your fathers 
provide your daily food. 

Long ago, in the old forests of England or Ger- 
many, our ancestors got their own food by hunting, 
fishing, keeping cattle, and by a little farming. To- 
day this work is done for us, but the birds have still 
to do their foraging for themselves. 

Birds eat the things which you eat, and besides 
have the whole insect world to hunt in. You can 
often tell by a bird's appearance what he eats, and 
when you have found that out, you can generally tell 
where he will choose to live, and what many of his 
habits of life are. When you see the wide mouth of 
a swallow, and his long, slender wings, you will decide 
that if any bird could catch the hosts of flies, gnats, 
and beetles that fill the air in summer, certainly the 
swallow should be well fitted for such hunting. When 
you remember that hard frosts kill these flying insects, 
you will feel sure that you will find no swallows here 
in winter. The long, sharp bill of a heron, and his 
long, naked feet seem well fitted for spearing frogs 




Copyright, i8gj, by the Osprey Co. 

BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLERS. 



FOOD OF BIRDS. IOI 

and fish in shallow water. Herons must therefore live 
near water, and in winter go where the swamps are 
not frozen. 

Such birds as Crows eat many kinds of food; what- 
ever they can get, in fact. In spring the farmers 
corn tastes sweet to them, but the grubs and beetles 
are good food, too, and they find that no one will 
shoot them for taking the grubs, while eating corn 
means taking some risk. In fall and winter, nuts are 
also added to the Crow's bill of fare. Near the sea- 
shore, dead fish and other sea animals which are 
found on the shore vary the food in winter. I am 
ashamed to say that eggs, and even young birds, are 
sometimes devoured by the Crow. When a bird is 
so easily pleased, and has such a wide choice, he can 
stay all the year round. 

Seed-eating birds, like the sparrows, can find seeds 
on the weeds and grasses even in winter, and the little 
bark inspectors find eggs, cocoons, and sleepy beetles 
in the cracks of the bark, so that winter does not 
frighten them away. Many of the sea birds, especially 
the divers, can find fish or shellfish in the winter sea, 
where it does not freeze over. 

Did you ever think why the Pine Warbler loved the 
pines, and the Summer Yellowbird preferred the 
willows ? Not because either of them eats the seeds 
or leaves of these trees, but because in them each 



102 BIRD WORLD. 

finds the insects he has learned to catch. Sometimes 
a bird's food depends so largely on a certain tree that 
he will have to leave a town, if these trees are all cut 
down. 

Sometimes birds have found a certain kind of food 
or a way of getting food so different from that of any 
other bird that their bills or feet have gradually 
changed, and they have become more and more 
dependent on this way of getting their living. The 
woodpecker's tongue is a long, hooked brush, with 
which he rakes out grubs from deep holes, the Hum- 
ming Bird's tongue is a tube through which he sucks 
honey, and the Flamingo's bill is a sieve through 
which he strains muddy water as a whale strains the 
sea water through his whalebone meshes. 

You could find many stories about the strange food 
or feeding habits of birds. First, however, look about 
you, if you can, and find out what the birds that are 
your own neighbors eat, and how they get it. Take 
the common birds, the Robin, the Chipping Sparrow, 
the Kingbird, and the Gull, and watch them till you 
see them getting and eating their dinner. Then you 
will be all the more interested in the interesting 
stories you will find in the books. You will learn, 
too, what patience and sharp sight people come 
to have who watch birds and find out all their 
secrets. 



WHEN A BIRD CHANGES HIS CLOTHES. 

DO you know how important the masts of a sailing 
ship are ? If they are broken, the ship is help- 
lesSo It drifts about wherever the wind blows it. 

A bird's wing and tail feathers are as important for 
its safety as the mast and sails of a ship. The strong, 
powerful quill feathers enable it to fly rapidly through 
the air to get its food and to avoid its enemies. It 
is important that the feathers of both wings should 
be uninjured, for the bird would be unable to guide 
its flight if one wing were much less strong than the 
other. 

Feathers get worn by use, some even get broken, 
and if the bird could not replace them it would have 
hard work, after a year or two, to make the old 
weatherworn ones do their work. 

Nature, however, provides the birds with a new 
suit of clothes every year. After the young are 
hatched, when the old birds no longer need their 
swiftness and strength to get the daily food for their 
children, the feathers of almost all birds begin to 
. drop out ; not at once, for that would leave the bird 
naked and helpless, but gradually and evenly, one 
from one side, then one from the other. As fast as 



104 BIRD WORLD. 

the feathers drop out others grow out to take their 
places, and in a month or so the bird has a new suit 
of fine strong feathers, all ready to carry him to his 
distant winter home. 

With many of the birds of the Duck and Goose 
family, the moulting goes on so quickly that the bird 
has scarcely enough feathers to enable him to fly. 
He hides during these unhappy weeks in distant 
swamps, hoping that no enemy will attack him till he 
is ready to fly again. He must feel like a cripple 
and try his wings impatiently, longing for the day 
when he can be off again through the air. 

In the case of many gay-colored male birds, this 
summer moult leaves them very shabby-looking. The 
Bobolink loses all his gay black and white, and comes 
out in August in brown and yellowish, like his wife 
and children. He probably does not feel so proud of 
his good looks as before, but I think he is safer. The 
black and white was so bright that his enemies could 
easily see him, but now he can slip away among the 
brown grasses and hardly be noticed. 

Many male birds are not content with one suit of 
feathers a year. They have to have another new suit, 
or part of one, in the spring, and of the gayest colors 
and feathers. Red and blue and yellow appear on 
the shoulders, in the tail, on the head, neck, and 
breast, in patches, bars, bands, streaks, in fact in every 



WHEN A BIRD CHANGES HIS CIO THE S. 105 

way that can make the bird attractive. The little 
fellows know very well what a fine appearance they 
now make. If there is any bit of color that does not 
show well, they take pains to bow or bend, or to spread 
wing or tail to display it. All these bright feathers 
are moulted again and the winter suit put on. So 
the suits change with the seasons, till the little life 
is ended. 



The Humming Birds are a perpetual pleasure. I 
shall never forget the surprise of joy the first time 
one alighted on my sleeve and rested, as much at 
home as if I w r ere a stick or harmless twig. 

Sparrows and Nuthatches had often alighted on 
my head as I stood musing over my flowers, but to 
have this tiny spark of brilliant life come to anchor, 
as it were, on anything so earthly as my arm was 
indeed a nine days' wonder. Now it has grown to be 
an old story, but it is never any less delightful. — 
Celia Thaxter, An Island Garden. 



A BIRD IN THE HAND. 

EVERY boy or girl who knows the winter woods 
has seen, hanging from the forked twigs of bushes 
or low trees, shallow, cup-shaped nests like that in the 
picture. 

These woodland nests are generally built by the 
Red-eyed Vireo, a bird whose enticing song and 
gentle manners soon win affection, if one learns to 
know him. The nest in the picture, how r ever, is that 
of his cousin, the Yellow-throated Vireo, whose dis- 
position is even more confiding than the Red-eye's. 

I have always liked Yellow-throated Vireos, because 
of the careless, confident way in which the male sings 
on the nest ; and when a pair of these vireos appeared 
last May in an apple tree just outside my dining-room 
window, I was prepared to give them a very cordial 
welcome. I had no idea, however, when the female 
finally selected a twig and fell to weaving, how impor- 
tant a member of our household she would become, 
and what charming associations she was destined to 
weave about the tree. 

It was the seventeenth of May when she began the 
nest. By night it seemed to me finished, but to her 
trained eye it was still insecure. All the next morn- 



A BIRD IN THE HAND. 107 

ing she kept at work, and at noon I could easily see 
that the walls were much thicker and more smoothly- 
covered. 

On the twenty-second of May there was one egg in 
the nest ; the next morning, a second. On the twenty- 
sixth I placed a short ladder against the tree, so that 
when I climbed it my head was level with the nest 
and within two feet of it. 

I climbed the ladder twice, to accustom the bird to 
her strange visitor, and the third time I offered her 
a cankerworm. She took it, but flew off with it. 

The next morning I made the fourth ascent of the 
ladder and offered the vireo a large black ant, which 
I caught on the tree itself. She swallowed it without 
leaving the nest, and a dozen more disappeared as 
quickly as I could give them to her. These black 
ants were evidently considered very choice food, and 
as there were large colonies of them in the hollows of 
the tree, there was always a busy line following up 
or down the limb against w r hich the ladder rested. 
The simplest way, therefore, to feed my friend was to 
stand on the ladder, waylay each passing ant and offer 
it to her. 

The next morning, on my fifth ascent, she again 
ate freely from my hand and from my lips. She even 
left her eggs and perched on the edge of the nest, 
reaching forward if I held the ant too far from her ; 



IOS BIRD WORLD. 

and when I had desolated the highway of ants and 
was descending the ladder, she flew from the limb 
below the nest to the top rung of the ladder, and after 
I fed her there, to the next rung, following me some 
distance. The male, whom I soon learned to distin- 
guish by the richer yellow of his throat, was naturally 
aroused and indignant at this intrusion. While his 
mate was eating peacefully from my hand, he flew 
backward and forward close to my head, uttering a 
harsh, scolding note, which I never heard from the 
female. 

In about a week after he first witnessed the perform- 
ance, the male became, to a certain extent, reconciled 
to his wife's strange conduct. He did not dart at my 
head so often, and he developed a habit which gave 
me a much higher opinion of his character, — flying 
to the nest when the female followed me and keeping 
the eggs warm during her absence. 

Once, indeed, while I was feeding her on the nest, 
some time after he had grown used to me, I heard 
him scolding more violently than ever. I wondered 
at his renewed vigilance, till I saw that he was watch- 
ing, not me, but a male vireo. His anger at my intru- 
sion had been somewhat modified by astonishment, 
but the presence of another bird was an occurrence 
he understood and felt competent to deal with. 

The male never fed from my hand, although he 



A BIRD IN THE HAND, 



109 



often remained in the nest until I came very near. I 
knew him at once by his retracted head and angry 
eyes. The female's head was always extended to see 
what I was bringing her, 
and her eyes were intelli- 
gent and gentle. 

He was a true barbarian, 
I fear, but I learned to re- 
spect him thoroughly. He 
defended his home and 
family as well as he could, 
and he was extremely ac- 
tive, a little later, in feeding 
the young. I told my 
friends, of course, of the 
rare friendship which I had 
formed, and several came 
to see the vireo eat from 
my hand. Not only did 
their presence under the 

tree seem to make no difference in her appetite, but 
when one of them climbed the ladder I had to admit 
that she took food from his hand as readily as she 
had from mine. At no time did she discriminate 
between her admirers. Any one who brought black 
ants was welcome. 

On the twenty-eighth of May I put her courage to 




Fig. 21. — Yellow-throated Vireo. 



no 



BIRD WORLD. 



a severe test. She was standing on the edge of the 
nest, the better to reach for the food which I offered 
her, and her composure was so great and my hand so 
near, that I ventured to close it over her and to carry 
her toward me. 

She did not seem alarmed at this strange experi- 
ence ; her heart was not beating at a rapid rate, but I 




Fig. 22. — Vireo and Nest. 

think the position was too unusual to be comfortable. 
She seemed pleased to be put down, although she 
remained where I placed her and continued her 
meal. 

If I put an ant on the palm of my hand, she pre- 
ferred to hover or to fly over and take the ant on the 
wing; yet on the third of June I induced her to perch 
on my finger. 



A BIRD IN THE HAND. Ill 

I managed this by putting a box containing ants 
in the palm of my hand, but letting it show between 
my fingers. She wanted the ants and saw only one 
way to get at them. She alighted, therefore, on my 
finger and thrust her bill down into the box. She 
also learned to eat from the box placed upon my 
head. 

In order to photograph the bird in these character- 
istic positions, we had to do an amount of climbing 
and cutting in the tree, which w T as in itself a severe 
test of her composure. The camera, too, on its 
tripod, was tied in place only a foot or two away, and 
remained there night and day, covered by a black 
cloth; but neither this strange object nor the removal 
of twigs and branches all around the nest seemed to 
disturb the vireo in the least. 

By the eighteenth of June the young were hatched, 
and as soon as they no longer needed the protection 
of her body, the mother treated herself to long and 
well-earned absences. Once she was away so long 
that I became greatly worried about her, but she 
returned at length, and ate once more, the last time, 
from my hand. 

She unconsciously gave me cause, during this last 
interview, to think of her a little more constantly than 
I liked. While I looked up at her as she fed, there 
fell into my eye a fragment of the ant she was eating 



1 1 2 BIRD WORLD. 

— an experience that forbids me to recommend formic 
acid as an eye lotion. 

But I forgave her, of course, and, as I say, this was 
the last I saw of her. At the end of two days I went 
away for the summer. When I returned, in Septem- 
ber, the well-worn nest was all that I could connect 
with the family I had watched. Often when I look 
at it I think of its brave architect and builder. I 
remember how helpless her little body felt in my 
hand, and I wonder what long journeys she is making 
now. 

Most of all, I wonder whether she will escape all 
the perils of the way and return to me next spring. 
The chances are many that I shall not see my vireo 
again, but if she returns next May the warmest wel- 
come and the largest ants will be waiting for her. 



Redstarts, like all little birds, are " feathered appe- 
tites," and this means the destruction of innumerable 
insects, health of shade trees, and the perfecting of 
flowers. — C. C. Abbott. 

The happy birds that change their sky 
To build and brood ; that live their life 
From land to land. 

Tennyson's In Memoriam. 



BIRD PASSPORTS. 

DO you know what a passport is ? 
In all parts of our country orderly persons may 
move about freely without exciting suspicion. In 
countries differently governed stricter rules prevail, 
and circumstances are liable to arise in which it is 
necessary to be quickly and easily identified, and to 
have the protection of one's own country. 

If none of you have done so, many of your parents 
have had to pass, during a single summer, through 
France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, if not through 
cities of Austria, Turkey, Russia, and perhaps coun- 
tries of Asia and Africa. The form of protection in 
such cases is a written passport signed by one of the 
highest officers of our government. On the following 
page is a copy of such a passport. 

If any wrong should come to one holding this paper, 
he can appeal to his government to see that it is 
righted, as far as is possible ; and if he himself does 
violence or injury, his government is made responsible 
for his wrongdoing. 

You can see that such a paper must not be trans- 
ferred from person to person. To make sure that 
the holder of it is the rightful owner, he is carefully 
described in the document, as you see. 







%^fvim^m^im^sm^^^mm0<§m^m^ 



f ///> /SS 



wj&Jm/ 



*mca/. 



vj^/mawOmmn's 



/O/ 




&xp a^ arUc Ai^fZ^B 7^^//r- /z/sSs/n. 




tfaeC+~*-&2*Y' 



BIRD PASSPORTS. 115 

" But what," you ask, " has this to do with birds ? " 
Only this : the birds are the greatest travelers in the 
world. They must go, in the different seasons of the 
year, where the food they need is most plentiful. If 
they do not have to " sow or reap or gather into 
barns," it is also true that they must glean and forage 
day by day to meet their needs. They are happiest 
in summer time in northern latitudes ; but w r hen frost 
comes and the insects are safe in winter cocoons, they 
must go where summer heat lasts the long year 
through. Traveling is not so much a pastime as a 
necessity. 

Going high over our heads, they do not ask our 
leave. Their frequent way stations are the tree tops, 
the marsh grasses, and all sorts of open or hidden 
ways. Some go singing, like the old-time Troubadours. 

The migration of different kinds of birds is becom- 
ing better known every year, and as they are interest- 
ing visitors we are all glad to know when they will 
come our way, and how we may know them as they 
pass. While they accept our hospitality without ask- 
ing for it, with very few exceptions (hardly worthy 
to be named), they are of the greatest service to us. 
Longfellow's " Birds of Killingworth " tells what this 
service is. 

Now, I am sure you can see how it is that an exact 
description of every known bird would be of great use 



Il6 BIRD WORLD. 

for many different reasons. You and I would be glad 
to have so good a statement of the birds we wish to 
know that when we see a bird we may be helped in 
finding out w r hat bird it is. And students who wish 
to know the family relations of different birds are glad 
of strict bird passports for that purpose. Those who 
have in times past shot birds, thinking they would get 
better crops, need to learn what birds have deserved 
their thanks instead. 

If we think of this, we shall find more pleasure in 
the bird books written for older students, which have 
seemed to contain nothing but dull statements. «We 
shall prize them as we do dictionaries. 

There is another idea connected with this matter 
of passports. As you grow older and study birds for 
yourselves, you will wish to compare what you learn 
with what others know. To do this well and easily 
you must be able to make out the passports, or 
descriptions, which are used in bird study. 

Many birds are so much alike that it often requires 
quite a full description to enable any one who knows 
to tell which of several birds you have in mind. It is 
the object of this lesson to start you in making descrip- 
tions for yourselves, as well as in using those of other 
people. 



THE BIRD OF MANY NAMES. 



IN our world we are apt to express an opinion of 
persons who in different places pass under differ- 
ent names. To appear in full wedding suit of three 
striking colors in New England in May and June, 
then to don a snuffy 
brown traveling suit 
under the names of 
Reed and Rice in 
different localities 
of the south, and in 
Cuba to assume a 
foreign name, while 
at least two other 
names are held in 
good faith by peo- 
ple somewhere else, 
would need explana- 
tion. 

But we know little of the use of names in Bird 
World. A few birds tell us plainly what they like to 
be called: Whip-poor-will, Bob White, Chickadee; for 
the most part we have put our own, often very stupid, 
names upon them. 




Fig. 2-1. — Bobolink. 



Il8 BIRD WORLD. 

A Bobolink is a much-beloved bird in New Eng- 
land. It would seem a crime against nature to shoot 
him, and there would be no motive save to enrich a 
museum or milliner's window. 

But in South Carolina or Georgia a farmer might 
be pardoned for finding a way to save his crops from 
the Rice Birds, and if he, for his part, gets morsels for 
his table, he would not be half paid for the young rice 
grains that the great flocks of passing birds devour. 

By the time those that have escaped the perils of 
gunners reach Central America, they are said to be 
dainty eating as Butter Birds for those whose con- 
sciences let them secure them, and we cannot blame 
the people much, since the birds keep their gay holi- 
day, wear their bright plumage, sing their gay songs 
with us, and make themselves much less attractive in 
the land of their winter exile. 

The female bird wears only the yellowish brown 
with dashes of light and dark on wings, tail, and back. 



Modest and shy as a nun is she, 
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 
Passing at home a patient life, 
Broods in the grass while her husband sings, 
" Bob-o-link, Bob-o-link, 
Spink, Spank, Spink." 



THE BOBOLINK. 

BOBOLINK ! that in the meadow, 
Or beneath the orchard's shadow, 
Keepest up a constant rattle 
Joyous as my children's prattle, 
Welcome to the north again ! 
Welcome to mine ear thy strain, 
Welcome to mine eye the sight 
Of thy buff, thy black, and white. 
Brighter plumes may greet the sun 
By the banks of Amazon ; 
Sweeter tones may weave the spell 
Of enchanting Philomel ; 
But the tropic bird would fail, 
And the English nightingale, 
If we should compare their worth 
With thine endless, gushing mirth c 

A single note, so sweet and 1ow t , 
Like a full heart's overflow, 
Forms the prelude ; but the strain 
Gives us no such tone again, 
For the wild and saucy song- 
Leaps and skips the notes among, 



120 BIRD WORLD. 

With such quick and sportive play, 
Ne'er was madder, merrier lay. 

Nor care nor fear thy bosom knows ; 
For thee a tempest never blows ; 
But when our northern summer 's o'er, 
By Delaware's or Schuylkill's shore 
The wild rice lifts its airy head, 
And royal feasts for thee are spread. 
And when the winter threatens there, 
Thy tireless wings yet own no fear, 
But bear thee to more southern coasts, 
Far beyond the reach of frosts. 

Bobolink ! still may thy gladness 
Take from me all taints of sadness ; 
Fill my soul with trust unshaken 
In that Being who has taken 
Care for every living thing 
In summer, winter, fall, and spring. 

Thomas Hill. 



If I were a bird, in building my nest, I should fol- 
low the example of the Bobolink, placing it in the 
midst of a broad meadow, where there was no spear 
of grass, or flower, or growth unlike another to mark 
its site. — Burroughs. 



GYPSY BIRDS. 

THERE are many land birds whose whole lives are 
passed almost in the same spot, and others that 
make great journeys twice a year ; both kinds, how- 
ever, the stay-at-homes as well as the travelers, are 
regular in their habits. 

You can tell where to find them or when to expect 
them, sometimes almost to a day. Orioles, for instance, 
reach Massachusetts, almost every year, in the first 
week of May and leave in the last week of August. 

Regular habits like these do not suit gypsies nor 
the Gypsy Birds; they wander from place to place 
wherever they find the food they like. Sometimes 
they appear in the fall in great numbers, and stay 
through the winter and late into the spring. The 
next year and the next they are absent ; perhaps ten 
years elapse before they revisit the place. 

The best known of the gypsy birds are the Gross- 
bills, whose strange pair of scissors you find among 
the bird bills illustrated on page 197. The handsom- 
est gypsies in Bird World are the Pine Grosbeaks ; 
the most lovable ones are the Linnets. All these live 
in the far north, where snow lies on the ground for 
the greater part of the year, in the great pine and 



122 BIRD WORLD. 

spruce forests, or still further north where the white 
birches grow, and the owls and foxes are white as the 
white snow. 

No one knows when to expect these gypsies. Any 
winter they may appear; the rosy-colored Linnets, 
in flocks of hundreds, light on the birches and scatter 
the seed-wings over the snow. The Crossbills go 
to the spruce cones for their seeds, and the Gros- 
beaks eat, I am sorry to say, not only the seeds but 
the buds as well. However, they come so rarely that 
they do little harm, and they are so beautiful and so 
tame that every one welcomes them. 

Probably if you were to put on your snowshoes and 
travel far northward when you heard that these birds 
had come, till you should come to the great forests 
where they were born, you would discover why they 
had come south. 

Not that they fear the cold, for they often live 
happily where the thermometer goes down to 30 
below zero. No, you would look at the trees, and if 
you saw that the birches, for some reason, had had a 
poor crop of seeds, as sometimes the apple tree's crop 
fails, or that there were few cones on the spruces, you 
would make up your mind that the gypsy birds had 
wandered south for food. 



FOSTER-MOTHERS. 

DO you know what a foster-mother is ? 
If you have read Hans Andersen's famous story, 
The Ugly Duckling, you will remember that the 
duck mother found a strange egg in her nest, and 
when it hatched, the bird that came out was larger by 
half than her own ducklings. So ugly and awkward 
it was that all the creatures in the farmyard pecked 
at it. The good mother, though she was ashamed of 
it, tried to protect it, and treated it kindly. 

Birds which hatch eggs which they did not them- 
selves lay are called foster-mothers, and there are 
more of them in Bird World than most people 
suppose. 

If you are walking in the fields, you may come 
across a strange sight, — a young bird, considerably 
larger than a sparrow, squatting on the ground with 
beak wide open and wings hanging down. In a 
moment he will squall loudly, and then run a few 
steps in the direction of a smaller bird which is busily 
hunting for insects or grubs. When the smaller bird 
finds something, she hurries to the lazy youngster 
and gives it to him ; but he has hardly swallowed 
it before his mouth is open for more. He gives his 



124 BIRD WORLD. 

little foster-mother no peace, and you wonder she is 
not utterly worn out. If you caught the two birds 
and looked at their passports, you could find very 
little close family resemblance, and would feel sure 
that the young bird was no true child of the other. 

But where are the bird's own brood? Did she 
have none, and has she adopted an orphan ? 

This is the sad part of the story, for even in Bird 
World there are some very rascally characters, it 
would seem, and the truth about them must be told. 
The little Vireo or Redstart had built her nest and 
laid her eggs in it; but one morning, while she had 
left it for a moment to get food, a larger bird had 
come sneaking through the bushes and had dropped 
her own big egg into the nest, among the pretty little 
ones that really belonged there. 

When the Vireo or Redstart came back, she expected 
to settle herself comfortably on the nest, with her bill 
and tail and little black eye just showing over the 
edge, to brood and brood all the long day. What 's 
to be done ? She calls in great excitement to her 
mate, and the pair have a long consultation, but they 
are not strong to throw the egg out, and if they desert 
the nest their own precious eggs will never hatch, so 
they decide to make the best of it, not knowing that 
what they call best is really the very worst. For, as 
soon as the mother settles down, the big egg gets all 



FOSTER-MO THERS. I 2 5 

the warmth of her body, and hatches a day or two 
before the others, or if they hatch at the same time, 
the big stranger needs so much more food that the 
real children are in danger of being but half fed. 

It is a sad story, is it not? The lazy Cowbird 
mother shirks all the work which we praise birds for 
doing. She makes no nest, she takes no pains to feed 
and protect her young. All her life she simply eats 
and sleeps and looks about her for some smaller bird 
whom she can deceive. 

The pleasant part of the story is the kindness of 
the poor Redstart mother to her foster-child. She has 
probably lost her own brood, but instead of pecking 
the stranger to death, she feeds him, working day 
after day over him till he is big enough to fly away, 
which he does without a word of thanks. 

Do you wonder how the Cowbird came by so odd 
a name ? Like most bird names, some habit of the 
bird suggested it. These birds are often seen in 
small flocks following cattle in pastures. It does not 
require great shrewdness to guess that it is not the 
cows, but the insects to be found upon them in warm 
weather, that attract the birds. If they do service to 
the cattle, w r e are glad to give them credit, but it is said, 
on good authority, that every Cowbird means the loss 
of a whole brood of Redstarts, Yellow Warblers, Vireos, 
or other birds of -which we cannot have too many. 



TWO FATHER BIRDS. 

YOU have discovered before now that birds, like 
people, have very different habits and characters. 
Even in the birds about you, the difference between 
a lazy Cowbird mother and such a careful, loving 
parent as the Grouse is very noticeable. 

The birds I am going now to tell you about are 
natives of countries far from America. One is well 
known to you ; some of you have perhaps seen an 
Ostrich at a circus. The other is not nearly so 
famous, but he is almost as interesting. He belongs 
to the sandpiper family, and is called the Ruff. 

The Ruffs name comes probably from a wonderful 
collar of feathers which grow each spring beneath and 
around his throat. They are so thick that they form 
a shield, and the bird uses them as such. The Ruffs 
choose places to which they return each night simply 
to fence with their bills. These bills are long but not 
very sharp, so that they never injure each other, but 
they fight as fiercely as if they meant to kill one 
another. Many male birds of other kinds fight in the 
breeding season, but with the Ruffs it seems to be 
merely for the sake of fighting, for they keep it up 
even after the female is sitting on her eggs. Instead 
of keeping near her, as many males do, to protect her 



TWO FATHER BIRDS. 



127 



and the nest from enemies, the Ruff spends his time 
with the other males, fighting continual duels, until 
the summer comes. Then his collar gradually drops 
off, and the males that have been fighting all the 
spring go off together in 
peaceful flocks. 

The male Ostrich has 
a very different charac- 
ter from the quarrelsome 
and neglectful Ruff. The 
Ostrich, like our barn- 
yard rooster, has several 
hens. All lay eggs in the 
same nest, which is noth- 
ing but a pit scraped out 
in the sand. In this 
sometimes thirty eggs are laid. Every night the male 
Ostrich broods on this great pile. If the young are 
threatened, the male defends them, or tries to lead the 
enemy astray by pretending that he is wounded or 
lame, just as the mother Grouse does here. 

Of the two fathers, the Ruff is by far the hand- 
somer. The bare red neck of the Ostrich is ugly 
enough, but uglier when compared with the Ruff's 
fine collar. Ask their wives, however, about it, and 
perhaps they will say, " Handsome is that handsome 
does." 




Fig. 24.— The Ruff. 



BORN IN A BOAT. 

THERE is no bird more skilful in diving than the 
Grebe. He has a trick of sinking out of sight 
which is so wonderful that you hardly believe that the 
bird has been in sight at all. Or if he is in a hurry 
he turns head over heels like a duck, and then the 
game is to guess where he will come up. It may be 
to the right, to the left, far or near, and sometimes 
you will think he has never come up at all. If a 
Grebe is fired at, he will start at the flash of the 
powder and be safe under water before the shot 
reaches the spot where he was. 

When the mother Grebe is swimming about with 
her little ones, teaching them to dive after minnows 
and bolt them down whole, she will often take them 
for a very curious ride. They get on her back, grasp 
her feathers tightly with their feet, and she dives 
while they hold bravely on. I watched a mother 
once who had only a single chick, though the family 
is usually large. When the pair saw me, the little 
fellow swam to his mother and she prepared to take 
him down in the usual way. But either she went too 
fast or he lost his hold, for when she disappeared he 
was washed off, and sat there bobbing up and down 



BORN IN A BOAT. 129 

on the ripple she had left, turning about like a walnut 
shell, the picture of helplessness and loneliness. 

I wonder what the poor mother thought when she 
came up in some quiet spot and found that her baby 
had been lost. She did not return while I waited, 
but I have no doubt they were soon reunited, and very 
glad she must have been that it was only a wave that 
had carried him off, and not a snake or a pickerel. 

But you are waiting to hear about the boat in which 
he was born. It does n't sail about, it is true, but it 
is really a boat at anchor. 

The mother Grebe makes a nest of coarse reeds 
woven together. The nest is fastened to reeds that 
are growing out of the water, and often rests upon 
the water. It gets water soaked, of course, but the 
shell, with its lining of skin, keeps the moisture out. 
The eggs are kept warm by the mother bird, and 
warm moisture does not keep the young from 
hatching. 

Grebes are most graceful in the water, but seem 
out of place on shore. Their feet are placed so far 
back in their bodies that they can hardly walk or 
stand. 



HOW THE WOOD DUCK GETS HER YOUNG 
TO THE WATER. 

AVERY interesting story it would make to describe 
all the modes by which young children and 
animals are carried from place to place by their 
parents. The Indian papoose travels long distances 
on its mother's back ; young opossums also ride on 
their mothers' backs, but to get a firmer hold wind 
their little tails round that of their mother. The 
mother kangaroo keeps her little children in a pouch 
or fold of her skin ; little toads, of one kind, live in 
holes in their mothers back. 

Young birds do little traveling before they learn 
to use their wings or legs. The Wood Duck, how- 
ever, builds her nest in the hollow of a tree, and when 
the young ducks hatch, she wishes, like all other 
ducks, to introduce them at once to the water. You 
have seen a mother cat carry her kittens in her mouth. 
She holds them tight, but does not hurt them. So 
the Wood Duck takes her downy little ducklings with 
her broad bill and flies to the ground. Her family is 
large ; over a dozen trips are sometimes needed from 
the nest to the ground. Then the procession starts 
off for the water, and the little ducks paddle off as 
easily as if they had not been born on land. 



Y 



THE GREAT CARAVAN ROUTE. 

OU remember that the old Grouse boasted that 
he kept warm and well fed even when the ground 
was frozen and covered with snow. If you were to 
walk through his woods in January, you would find 
tracks in the snow, and at last he would start up from 
under the bushes ahead of you, with a whirr that 
would frighten you the first time you heard it. And 
when he had flown off, how silent the woods would 
be ! You might walk for miles and meet less than 
half a dozen birds. 

In spring the edges of the woods and the fields 
near by would ring with bird music, but now a few 
lisping notes from the Kinglets and Chickadees, the 
scream of a Blue Jay, or the caw of a Crow would be 
the only sounds made by birds. 

Not quite the only ones, after all, for the little 
Downy Woodpecker pays his visits to the grubs at 
all seasons, and wakes them from their winter sleep 
by knocking politely at their doors. 

Where have the birds gone ? Where is the Oven- 
bird, and the Tanager ? Where are the thrushes 
and the vireos ? 

It is easy to tell you where they are, but much 
harder to say how they got there. If you wished to 



132 BIRD WORLD. 

visit the islands where these birds winter, the forests 
where flowers always bloom and insects are never 
killed by frost, you must go either by train to Flor- 
ida, and then cross by steamer from Tampa Bay to 
Havana, or you can take other steamers which sail 
directly from Boston, New York, and other eastern 
cities to the West Indies. Unless you live on some 
main line, you will have first to travel a shorter or 
longer distance, as the case may be, by side lines, 
which bring you to the big city where the steamers 
or the fast express trains start. The birds, as you 
know, can take neither train nor boat. How is it 
they are in New England in September, and in 
November already in Cuba ? 

You may have read how from Samarcand or 
Irkutsk the lines of camels start for a long and diffi- 
cult journey across the desert. Many fall exhausted 
by the way, or are attacked and killed by highway- 
men. Merchants, often of different tribes, form a 
company for mutual protection. In the African 
deserts the caravans find pleasant spots called oases, 
where they halt to refresh themselves from the wells 
or springs, and to rest a little before they take up 
their journeying again. 

The birds, too, form caravans before they start on 
their long journeys in the fall. They have their 
meeting places where different tribes assemble. They 



THE GREAT CARAVAN ROUTE. 133 

are the ships of the air as the camels are ships of the 
desert. 

Often the caravan is overtaken by a storm and 
many birds die, or, when they are resting in some 
friendly thicket or grove, robbers in the shape of 
hawks attack them. It is by no means an easy 
journey, and yet, by far the larger part of the birds 
that are with us in the summer make it not once but 
twice a year. 

Some birds prefer to travel by day, and these have 
no difficulty in finding the way. Many of you have 
heard in the pleasant autumn days, far above, the honk 
of the wild geese, and you can imagine that the old 
goose, at the head of the great V-shaped line, can find, 
from his great height, landmarks in rivers and lakes 
which he has passed before and remembers. 

But most of the birds go by night — if you think of 
the robber hawks you will guess why — and for them 
the journey is far harder. But even at night, if it is 
clear, ponds shine and the mountains loom up dark 
and large, and the old birds that have been that way 
before find landmarks to steer by. 

They call from time to time, and the rest of the 
caravan coming behind answer them. On they fly 
till dawn, when they drop down, tired and hungry, to 
rest through the day, and perhaps for several days, 
before they take another night journey. 



134 BIRD WO RID. 

It is while they are resting in this way in the 
thickets, or perhaps in the orchards or gardens of the 
towns, that men who are fond of birds discover them 
and learn how they are getting on in their journeys. 
It may come about some time that a telegram may be 
sent to the daily papers saying that such and such 
birds are at Charleston or Savannah or Tampa. This 
would please many readers, but we must wait till we 
are much more kindhearted than many people are 
now, or it would be no kindness to the birds. 

If you were to go out some morning in September 
and find strange birds in your garden scratching 
under the currant bushes, or merely hiding and resting, 
and the next morning find them missing, you would 
know that your city or town was on the great caravan 
route from the frozen north to the sunny south. 



As for myself, I am turned hammock contractor 
for the Orioles, taking my pay in " notes. " I throw 
strings out of the window and they snap at them at 
once. They sit in the cherry tree hard by and war- 
ble, " Hurry up, hurry up ! " I never found out before 
just what they said. But if you listen you will find 
that this is what they first say. — Lowell. 



BIRD WORLD IN WINTER. 

WE will go well out of city or village, and, as 
birds are creatures of habit, we will take 
counsel of some one whose long acquaintance with 
them has let him into their secrets, to know where to 
find them. 

Are we afraid to venture out directly after a storm ? 
The way to some partial clearing in the woods may 
be rough, but where tiny birds can be merry and 
light-hearted we will not mind if the frost stings our 
ears and finger-tips. 

The woods in this case are in Ohio, and the one to 
tell us of them is Mr. Leander S. Keyser. The first 
sound that echoes through the woods is the vigorous 
bugle of the hardy Carolina Wren. The most of the 
winter birds go in straggling flocks, but this little 
hero of many storms is apt to be alone. 

Mr. Chapman calls this restless, excitable bird a 
" feathered Jack-in-a-box," bobbing about, gesticulating 
with his expressive tail, and seldom in sight more 
than a minute at a time. He sings as he goes, with 
a vocabulary so rich he has been called the Mocking 
Wren. 

How can we help shivering to see a little commu- 
nity of Tree Sparrows holding a winter carnival in 



136 BIRD WORLD. 

the new-fallen snow ? When once we have had their 
tracks or footprints pointed out to us, we may be sure 
we shall find them in our own neighborhoods also in 
winter. In the wildest wind and snow flurries the 
Tree Sparrows will keep up their cheerful chirp, while 
they flit about on the snow as if it were down, picking 
seeds from grass stems and weed stalks. Emerson 
defines a weed as a plant man has not yet found a 
use for. We and the sparrows have found a use for 
weeds. 

Sometimes the tracks showed that the birds had 
taken a bite, as it were, and then had flitted across 
the snow to another spot ; deepened hollows showed 
where they had wallowed in the drifts for mere fun, 
as boys delight to do. Brave little sparrows, you are 
better comrades than Ave thought. 

" I have seen birds," says Mr. Keyser, " taking pool- 
baths, shower-baths, dew-baths, and dust-baths. Who 
will say they never take a snow-bath ? " 

Here in the very middle of winter we are watching 
a Junco. He finds a feast of juicy berries on the dog- 
wood tree, picks one, dashes down into the snow and 
nibbles it, then flings the seed away, standing leg- 
deep in ice crystals until he has eaten it up. The 
rest of the birds eat their berries where they find them 
on the trees. Tree Sparrows come to the dogberry 
tree also, but they reject the pulp and bore the pit for 




WINTER LIFE. 

KINGLETS. A BROWN CREEPER. 



BIRD WORLD IN WINTER. 1 37 

its tiny kernel, while Robins, Bluebirds, and the rest 
swallow the berry whole when they come to it. 

One little story that Mr. Keyser tells shall end our 
January visit. It is about a Junco. 

" From a cornfield I witnessed a little scene that 
filled me with delight. At some distance I perceived 
a snowbird eating seeds from the raceme of a tall 
weed, which bent over in a graceful arch beneath its 
dainty burden. I climbed the fence and crept cau- 
tiously nearer to get a better view of the little diner- 
out. What kind of a discovery do you suppose I 
made ? I could scarcely believe my eyes. 

" There beneath the weed, hopping about on the 
snow, were a Tree Sparrow and a Junco, picking up 
the seeds that their companion above was shaking 
down. It was such a pretty little comedy that I 
laughed aloud for pure delight. It seemed for all the 
world like a boy in an apple tree shaking down the 
mellow fruit for his playmates, who were gathering it 
from the ground as it fell. Farther on in the woods 
I saw a Junco dart up to a weed too small to afford 
him a comfortable perch, give it a shake which would 
bring down a quantity of seeds, and then flit below 
and eat them from the white tablecloth." 



BIRD LODGINGS IN WINTER. 

WE have been told what Robins do at night ; but 
Robindom is but a small part of Bird World. 
It does not matter much on summer nights, but in 
early February and March, or even in the storms of 
April and May, we might rest better if we knew just 
how the birds we were so glad to see in the morning 
sunshine were faring now that the sun has gone down. 

It is quite plain that nothing troubles a bird much 
but fear of enemies and scarcity of food. If he can 
keep the little heart within him warm and safe, he 
will make a merry life. Since it was found out what 
Robins do, bird students have been watching late and 
rising before dawn to solve the kindly problem of 
birds' night quarters. 

The first thought is that they would be in bushes 
and trees ; but it seems that the Snowbirds are much 
more likely to be on, or in, or near the ground, unless 
they find holes in old trees as woodpeckers do. In 
little mounds of sod thrown up by the frost a neat 
little entrance has often been found to lead to the 
snug, cosy bedroom of a Snowbird. Little hollowed 
places, such as field mice make in summer, have been 
taken and, with a little grass pulled over, have sheltered 



BIRD LODGINGS IN WINTER, 139 

Juncos as nicely as could be wished. A brush pile 
left by wood-choppers has given protection to some 
little mixed colony. Tall grass will do for Meadow- 
larks and Red-winged Blackbirds, and thorn bushes, 
into which the owl or bigger creatures could not 
crawl, may protect a spot where a covering of leaves 
makes comfort enough for the brave little sojourners. 
If we stop to think, we shall see that a tall tree top 
would be a much colder place ; and while the birds 
will make the best of what they have, they will seek 
far to find comfort. 



THE BIRD. 



Hither thou com'st. The busy wind all night 
Blew through thy lodging, where thy own warm w T ing 
Thy pillow was. Many a sullen storm, 
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born, 

Rain'd on thy bed 

And harmless head ; 
And now as fresh and cheerful as the light 
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing 
Unto the Providence, whose unseen arm 
Curb'd them, and cloth'd thee well and warm. 
All things that be praise Him ; and had 
Their lesson taught them when first made. 

Henry Vaughan. 



THE EAGLE. 

IT is hard to tell just how the Bald Eagle came to be 
our national emblem. It certainly is not from the 
character of the bird, for he is a sort of tramp, and 
sometimes even a thief. I think it must have been 
from his splendid power of flight, and the fine appear- 
ance he makes when he is soaring high in the sky. 
An eagle with his great wings outspread looks so 
majestic and so powerful that he might easily, in such 
an attitude, represent the power and greatness of a 
nation. 

Watch a Bald Eagle getting his dinner, and much 
of your respect for him will vanish. If he does not 
steal it, he picks it up here and there like a street- 
dog, — a dead fish by the shore of a lake, or a dead 
lamb which the dogs have killed. He often watches 
an Osprey or Fishhawk till he sees him catch a fish, 
and then chases him till the hawk with a scream of 
disappointment drops the meal for which he has 
worked. The eagle picks it up, and enjoys the ill- 
gotten food. 

Let us try to gain for our national emblem such a 
reputation that people will think only of the power 
and majesty of the eagle, and forget his lazy and 
thievish habits. 



THE CHICKADEE. 



A POET was once walking in the Concord woods 
in winter. The snow was deep ; it was bitterly 
cold ; his home was a long way off. He stumbled 



along, 



feeling so dis- 




couraged and so help- 
less that it seemed as 
though he must give 
up the struggle. 

Just then he heard a 
bright, cheerful note, 
and in the twigs above 
him he saw a Chicka- 
dee hopping about as 
gaily as if it were 
spring, and calling such 
a brisk greeting that it 
seemed he must be 
really glad to see a fellow-traveler. 

The poet felt ashamed that such a "little scrap of 
valor " could face the storm all day and all night, with- 
out ever losing his courage or even his cheerfulness ; 
he determined to take the bird for his model, and like 
him be merry and brave, no matter how discouraging 
life might sometimes seem. 






Fig. 25. — Chickadee. 



A BIRD-PARADISE. 

MANY of the islands in the Pacific Ocean are so 
small that no people live on them ; but they are 
large enough for multitudes of birds to make them 
their homes. Winter never comes to these islands, 
and the birds spend their whole lives on the same 
spot where they and their forefathers were born. 

Occasionally it happens that vessels touch at these 
islands, that their crew may get fresh water or explore 
the shores and draw maps such as you have in your 
geographies. When these sailors or map-makers land, 
they find to their surprise that the birds have no fear 
of their strange visitors. 

Instead of flying to the tops of trees or hiding in 
bushes, the birds walk about men's feet or light on 
their shoulders. When some men rode on horses, the 
birds lighted on the backs of the horses and picked at 
the saddles to see what these new contrivances were. 
When one explorer was picking up shells along the 
beach, a little bird followed him, almost snatching the 
shells out of his hands in its curiosity to know what 
the man was doing. 

Why were the birds so fearless ? They were no more 
stupid than their cousins here. Their courage came 



A BIRD-PARADISE. 1 43 

from their ignorance of the harm men could do. No 
men had ever hunted them. The guns which they 
saw and the noise of the firing meant nothing to 
them ; to our birds it means broken wings and blood- 
stained feathers. 

It seems a pity, does it not, that it is only where 
man is not known that he is not feared. If we all 
had treated birds kindly, man would be loved best 
where he is best known. 



Little birds sit on the telegraph wires 

And chitter, and flitter, and fold their wings ; 

Maybe they think that for thern and their sires, 

Stretched always, on purpose, those wonderful strings, 

And perhaps the Thought that the world inspires 
Did plan for the birds, among other things. 

Little things light on the lines of our lives, — 

Hopes and joys and acts of to-day, 
And we think that for these the Lord contrives, 

Nor catch what the hidden lightnings say ; 
Yet, from end to end, His meaning arrives, 

And His word runs, underneath, all the way. 

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 



THE SEA-GULL. 

FAR from the loud sea beaches, 
Where he goes fishing and crying. 
Here in the inland garden, 
Why is the sea-gull flying ? 

Here are no fish to dive for ; 

Here is the corn and lea ; 
Here are the green trees rustling., 

Hie away home to the sea! 

Fresh is the river water, 

And quiet among the rushes ; 
This is no home for the sea-gull, 

But for the rooks and thrushes. 

Pity the bird that has wandered ! 

Pity the sailor ashore ! 
Hurry him home to the ocean, 

Let him come here no more ! 

High on the sea-cliff ledges, 

The white gulls are trooping and crying ; 
Here among rooks and roses, 

Why is the sea-gull flying ? 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 





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HERRING GULLS AND THEIR NESTING PLACES. 



A GREAT TRAVELER. 

A good south wind sprung up behind, 
The Albatross did follow, 
And every day, for food or play, 
Came to the mariner's hollo ! 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine ; 

While all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white moonshine. 

IF the little birds went to school instead of being 
taught at home, what do you suppose would be 
the most important stud)/ ? Arithmetic ? No, indeed. 
The very wisest of them can't count up to ten. Gram- 
mar ? Not at all. They don't even know the Parts 
of Speech, though they have certainly heard Excla- 
mations enough. 

Would it be geography ? Yes. I suppose most 
birds would have to have geography every day in the 
week. At any rate, the old birds know enough about 
it, and practice almost every hour what they know. 

The old Grouse you read about knew every bush 
and clump of ferns in his swamp, and the little paths 
which led up to the hill, and the pine grove above the 
swamp. He knew its products and its climate, where 



146 BIRD WORLD. 

the buds and berries grew, and what kind of wind 
and sky meant rain. 

But, after all, the Grouse would not have been the 
best teacher of geography the birds could have found 
for their school. He knew the swamp and the woods 
around it, but a journey to the next swamp would 
have seemed to him quite a long one. 

In fact, you remember, he rather prided himself on 
being a stay-at-home, and when his friend the Oven- 
bird told him about the beautiful southern forests, I 
can fancy him listening politely, but not caring much 
about them. 

The Ovenbird would make a better teacher, would 
he not ? Think, for a moment, what he sees every 
year of his life : the dry oak woods of the north are 
his home in the summer; he knows them almost as 
well as the Grouse does, and can find his way about 
from the little brook where the fat spiders live, to the 
dry bank where his mate has built her little oven. 
Then in October he spends a few days in New York 
State, flies across the broad Hudson, and then on to 
the shores of Chesapeake Bay. A week or two later 
he would be taking his way over the fallen needles of 
the great Georgia pines, and the next week watching 
the alligators in a Florida swamp. 

Here a few of his friends think it warm enough 
to spend the winter, but he flies over the warm Gulf 



A GREAT TRAVELER. 1 47 

Stream, over the coral islands, and comes to some 
little island of the West Indies, where the great palms 
wave along the shore. Here there are spiders enough 
for him and for all his northern and southern friends. 

He sees the beautiful white Herons and the red 
Flamingoes, but side by side with him in the bushes 
are some friends who have made the long journey 
from the north in his company, Maryland Yellow- 
throats and Summer Yellowbirds, and higher up in 
the trees Tanagers and Orioles. 

While the Grouse is up in the pine trees where the 
snow is falling steadily, the Ovenbird hides in thickest 
bushes from the West Indian hurricanes, which lash 
the tall palms on the shore. 

But your geography teacher tells you about lands 
further away, — about the white snow fields of Green- 
land, about the great Pacific Ocean, and the wonder- 
ful jungles of India, where the tigers steal through 
the long grass ; or the forests of the Amazon on our 
own side of the world, where the monkeys make rope- 
ladders of themselves over the streams. 

I do not think there is any bird that has seen all 
these places ; the great white Owl has traveled much 
in the north, and could tell many an interesting story 
of the hare and the grouse, which try to escape his 
keen eyes by turning white themselves in winter. 

But he never ventures into the Amazon forests or 



I4cS BIRD WORLD. 

the Indian jungle; he is dressed too warmly to enjoy 
the climate, for one thing, nor does he understand the 
kind of hunting he would have to do there. He 
needs wide plains where he can fly silently for miles 
and miles until he finds a hare crouching behind a 
hummock. And the Toucan of Brazil and the Horn- 
bill of India would find no fruit in the barren north 
country. 

Perhaps the greatest traveler, after all, is the bird 
mentioned in the verses at the head of this story. 




Fig. 26. — Showing Great Length of Albatross' Wings. 

This traveler's name shows his manner of life, — the 
Wandering Albatross. He travels all over the south- 
ern seas from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn 
and around again ; people have watched him from 
their ships, and every one who has seen him has 
wondered at his huge wings and the skill with which 
he uses them. 

He never seems to hurry or to work hard, even 
against a fierce wind ; now on one side of the ship, 
now on the other, now low over the water, now high 
in the air, often without a stroke of his wings. 



A GREAT TRAVELER. 1 49 

Perhaps the best testimonial he could bring, when 
he applied for his position as Bird School-teacher, 
would be the following record taken from the wing 
of an Albatross which the captain of a sailing vessel 
had caught : 

"' December 8th, 1847. Ship Euphrates, Edwards, New Bed- 
ford, 16 months out. . . . Lat. 43 00' South. Long. 148 40' 
West. Thick, foggy, with rain.' 

" On the opposite side it reads : * This was taken from the neck 
of a Goney [Albatross], on the coast of Chili, by Hiram Luther, 
Dec. 20th, 1847. In Lat - 45° 5°' South. Long. 78 27' West. 
Taken out of a small bottle tied round the bird's neck.' 

" The shortest distance between Capt. Edwards's position, 
about 800 miles east of New Zealand, and Capt. Luther's position 
off the coast of Chili in the vicinity of Juan Fernandez, is about 
3400 miles. The bird, therefore, covered at least this distance in 
the twelve days which intervened between its release and capture." 



THE REDSTART. 

IN the West Indies, although there are many bright- 
colored birds which are natives of the islands, our 
little Redstart is known as Candelita, the little torch. 

Unlike several of the bright-colored birds, such as 
the Tanager and the Indigo Bird, he does not lose his 
brilliant colors in the autumn ; the orange patches on 
his shoulders gleam against his black head all winter 
in the tropical forests, where he flits about, spreading 
his yellow tail and catching insects among the leaves. 

By May he is back in New England helping his 
mate select the best fork in a tree for their pretty 
nest. If you see the female searching for building 
material, put out wool or cotton batting, and for a 
reward you may see where she flies with it and find 
the nest. 

The little Redstart is one of the unhappy birds on 
whom the Cowbird forces her ugly young ones, but 
he brings up the strangers faithfully. 

Nothing but good can be said of either the male or 
the female Redstart ; they catch countless insects, 
cheer us by their beauty and pretty ways, and bring 
up their young to be hard-working and cheerful like 
themselves. 




THE REDSTART. 



THE HUMMING BIRD. 

THERE is always great excitement when a Hum- 
ming Bird's nest is found. It is so rarely seen, 
so skilfully and beautifully made, that it seems more 
like a bit of bird life from fairy land than a real bird's 
nest. The nest is generally saddled on a dead twig 
and covered with the gray lichen which clothes dead 
twigs, so that unless you see the little mother sitting 
in it, you pass it by for a gray, lichen-covered knob. 
Look into it and see the two tiny white eggs not 
larger than pea beans. 

If the nest looks like that of a fairy bird, the parents 
look even more like strangers in the Bird World. 
Among the great gaudy flowers of the tropics, Hum- 
ming Birds probably seem more in place. Here, 
however, their quick whirring flight, their silence, 
their sudden coming and going, make the sight of 
one something to remember and be glad for. People 
who love flowers and live among them are oftenest 
visited by these tiny birds. Often the bird seems to 
have a regular route, and comes to the same garden 
and the same flowers at nearly the same hour of the 
day. 



152 BIRD WO RID. 

Once, while sitting on a piazza in the country, along 
which there grew many flowers which the Humming 
Bird loved, a lady saw two of them go through a very 
remarkable and beautiful movement. The two birds 
hovered in the air about ten feet apart, their wings 
beating so fast that it was impossible to see them. 
Suddenly the birds shot dow r n and passed each other, 
then up, till each stopped in the position which the 
other one had held. This movement they repeated 
several times. It seemed as if the birds were execut- 
ing some beautiful dance. 

South and North America are the only countries 
which possess Humming Birds. In the eastern part 
of the United States we have only one species, but 
in California several are found, and as one goes 
southward, they become more numerous ; in South 
America there are over a thousand species. Among 
these are some of the most gorgeous colors in nature. 
The throat and neck feathers particularly shine with 
changeable colors, like brilliant jewels. The bills of 
the birds, too, are extremely interesting. Some are 
long and curved, so that the bird can feed from the 
honey at the bottom of the long tube-like flowers. It 
is a sad sight in South America to see the boxes of 
Humming Birds' skins pulled from their poor, bleed- 
ing little bodies and sent to the milliner's to decorate 
women's hats. 



THE HUMMING BIRD. 153 

Our Humming Bird, the Ruby-throated, lives, as 
you know, on the sweet nectar of flowers. Birds 
often fly into the open windows in summer, and, if 
caught, are easily tamed. They will live on sugar 
and water, and many stories are told of their pretty 
ways in captivity. The prettiest sight, however, must 
have been to see them dart off happily again when 
their captors released them. 

We have been taught how many plants need insects 
to bring their pollen for some other plant to fertilize 
their blossoms. The Humming Bird renders this 
service. We are not sure he would do so simply for 
the sweets the deep chalices contain, but he knows 
that where honey is insects are sure to be, and he 
inserts his long curved bill. 

I like sometimes, on a cool, clear night in Septem- 
ber, to think of the little Humming Birds away up in 
the darkness, their wings buzzing and their long bills 
pointing straight for the West Indies. Twice a year 
the little mites take a journey of thousands of miles in 
the night times, coming back when our spring returns 
and our flowers are again in bloom. 

All of us know the habit of the Humming Bird of 
poising himself in the air and keeping up a quick 
vibration of his w T ings, so that they can hardly be seen 
as wings at all. 

Humming Birds are said to be little centers of pas- 



154 



BIRD WORLD. 



sion. If they do not find in a flower the honey or 
insects they expected, they will sometimes tear it to 
pieces, as if in a great rage. 

The Humming Bird nest is the most exquisite 
little fabric you can imagine. It is like a fairy thing. 
Its tiny white eggs are not larger than the smallest 
bean, and the naked little ones when they hatch have 
been compared to bluebottle flies. 




Fig. 27. — Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 



AS FREE AS A BIRD. 

EVERY good thing in the world must be earned. 
A bird would have less care and few r er moments 
of anxiety if it lived in a cage, if it were sheltered in 
stormy times, protected from enemies, and provided 
with food. But the bird prefers, as you would, I hope, 
to run the dangers of a free life for the sake of its 
pleasures. 

In ordinary seasons, and for the greater part of the 
year, these pleasures are many. Chief among them 
in the case of many birds must be the joy of having 
wings. When an Ovenbird mounts high in air, and 
then, closing his wings, shoots down a hundred feet 
or more, it seems as if he must enjoy the rush of the 
air and the speed of his flight. 

Hawks often soar in great curves, hardly moving 
their wings, but rising on the up-current of air, till 
they seem mere specks in the blue sky. They do this 
with no apparent purpose, but as if it were a sport. 
Some of the water birds — the Gannets, for instance 
— have such powerful wings that the fiercest winds 
cannot drive them out of their course ; they circle 
about in tremendous storms as if they enjoyed the 
wild scene. 



156 BIRD WORLD. 

It is in nesting time, of course, that birds suffer the 
most anxiety. When any strange creature approaches 
the nest, the mother's restless eye watches anxiously. 
The father is often near at hand, and if the nest or 
young are threatened, an outcry is raised at once. 

The day the young first fly and the succeeding ones, 
till they are skilful and strong, are times of watchful- 
ness. But there are many happy hours even in nest- 
ing time. Bright, sunny days come, when the male 
sings for hours from some tree near by, and the female 
broods on the nest, happy to feel the warm eggs under 
her. 

When the young are old enough to care for them- 
selves, then the birds' holiday begins, and it often 
lasts till the following spring. Nothing to do now 
but to get food from the thick patches of weeds or 
the numerous insects. An eye must be kept out for 
the shadow of a hawk's wing, and by the game birds 
for the approach of a gunner; but many birds run 
little risk even from these enemies. . Many of the 
birds flock together at this season ; many sleep in 
great companies, and at night, when they go to bed, 
they make as much noise and have as jolly a time as 
a band of children. 

A bird's memory is too short to remember suffering 
for long, and his little brain does not look forward, as 
ours do, to evil that may come. His nature teaches 







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A PAIR OF ORIOLES. 



AS FREE AS A BIRD. 



157 



him to be wide-awake, but he does not borrow trouble. 
When it rains, he hides in some thick shelter ; when 
it is cold, he fluffs out his feathers ; when the sun 
comes out, he sings again from joy. A poet once 
envied the fishes their " sweet, silver life wrapped in 
round waves," but a bird has all the pleasures that a 
fish can enjoy, and the sun, the warmth, and song 
besides. 




Fig. 28.— Cedar Bird. 



TO THE GREAT AND GENERAL COURT OF 
MASSACHUSETTS. 

We, the Song birds of Massachusetts and their Play- 
fellows, make this our humble petition} 

JJZE know more about yoic than yon think we do. We 
know how good you are. We have hopped about the 
roofs and looked in at the windows of the houses you have 
built for poor and sick and hungry people and little lame and 
deaf and blmd children. We have built our nests in the 
trees and sung many a song as we flew about the gardens and 
parks you have made so beautiful for your own children, 
especially yotcr poor children, to play in. 

Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping all 
the time where the sun is bright and warm ; and we know 
that whenever you do anything, other people all over the great 
land between the seas and the great lakes find it out, and 
pretty soon will try to do the same thing. We know ; we 
know. We are Americans just as you are. Some of us, like 
some of you, came from across the great sea, bitt most of the 
birds like us have lived here a long while ; and birds like us 
welcomed yoitr fathers when they came here "many years ago. 
Our fathers and mothers have always done their best to please 
your fathers and mothers. 

1 This petition, reduced in size from the original manuscript now 
lying in the Massachusetts State House, was written by Hon. George F. 
Hoar and illuminated by Miss Ellen Hale. 



SONG BIItDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 159 




Fig. 29. — Song Birds of Massachusetts. 

Now we have a sad story to tell you. Thought- 
less or bad people are trying to destroy its. They 
kill us because our feathers are beautiful. Even 
pretty and sweet girls, who we should think would fljj''j£ 
be our best friends, kill our brothers and children 




160 BIRD WORLD. 

so that they may wear tJieir plumage o?i their hats. So?ne- 
times people kill its from mere wantonness. Cruel boys 
destroy our nests and steal oitr eggs and our young ones. 
People with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the 
place for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop 
windozv, or under a glass case. If this goes on much longer, 
all your song birds will be gone* Already, we are told, in 
some other countries that ?/sed to be full of birds, they are 
almost gone. Even the nightingales are being all killed in 
Italy. 

Now we humbly pray that you will stop all this, and will 
save us from this sad fate. You have already made a law 
that no one shall kill a harmless song bird or destroy our nests 
or our eggs. Will yotc please to make another that no one 
shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get 
them ? We want them all ourselves. Your pretty girls are 
pretty enough without them. We are told that it is as easy 
for you to do it as for Blackbird to whistle. 

If you will, we know how to pay you a hundred times over. 

We will teach yoitr children to keep themselves clean and neat. 

We will show them hoiv to live together in peace and love and 
to agree as we do in our nests. We will build pretty liotcses 
which you will like to see. We will play about your gardens 
and flower beds, — ourselves like flowers on wings, — without 
any cost to you. We will destroy the wicked insects and 
worms that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and 
apples and roses. We will give you our best songs and make 
the spring more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. 
Every June morning when you go out into the field, Oriole 



SONG BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 161 

and Blackbird and Bobolink zvill fly after yon and make the 
day more delightful to yon ; and when yon go home tired at 
sundown, Vesper Sparrow will tell yon how grateful we are. 
When we sit on your porch after dark, Fife Bird and Hermit 
Thrush and Wood Thrush will sing to you ; and even Whip- 
poor-will will clieer tip a little. . We^know where zve are safe. 
In a little while all the birds will come to live in Massachu- 
setts again, and everybody who loves music will like to make 
a summer home with you. 



BIRDS' ENEMIES. 

NONE of us know what it is to live in the midst 
of enemies ; to go to bed at night wondering 
whether Indians are not hiding in the darkness wait- 
ing to burn our house and carry us off prisoners. 

Many children, two hundred years ago, when the 
French and Indians were at war with the settlers, saw 
their fathers load their guns at night and go to sleep, 
ready to run with them to the blockhouse if the 
alarm were sounded. 

The birds, like the early settlers, are never free 
from fear. Their enemies are so numerous, so fierce, 
so quick, that they must be constantly on the watch, 
and, like the early settlers, have to guard, not them- 
selves only, but their young ones and their eggs. 

Most of the birds' enemies are looking for a meal, 
and hope to pick the flesh off the bones of some 
plump Robin or Quail. A few are afraid of the sharp 
bills of the old birds, and so prowl about, hoping to 
seize the helpless young when their parents are away 
for a moment, or to break and open the eggs and eat 
the uncooked omelet which they find in them. 

Some go about boldly by day, either soaring high 
overhead or sitting motionless on some lookout post, 



BIRDS' ENEMIES. 163 

and the eyes of such enemies are so sharp that most 
birds prefer to keep near bushes or trees so that 
they may dive into them at the first sight of their foe. 
Chickadees fly from tree to tree, and if they come to 
an open space they slip over, one by one, as hurriedly 
as possible. A hat thrown up when they are starting 
frightens them so that they hurry back to shelter. 
These midday enemies are mostly hawks, swift, strong 
robbers, with crooked claws and powerful bills. Some 
of them have very long wings, so that they can go 
like an arrow at their victim, and when they reach 
him and strike their talons into his breast, the force 
of their flight often strikes him to the ground, where 
the hawk's hooked bill soon makes an end of the 
unfortunate bird. 

Other enemies fly softly about at dusk. You have 
already read about the owls and know how the birds 
hate the sight of them. There is another night wan- 
derer whom many of the birds fear and despise as 
much as they do an owl. It is an animal of which 
you are probably very fond, your own gentle Pussy. 
But if Pussy were four or perhaps ten times as big as 
you are, and you saw her big yellow eyes glaring at 
your little brothers and sisters or friends, ready to 
spring at them and eat them, you would set up a cry 
of warning, too, just as the wrens do when they see 
her. Many a poor mother-Robin has seen her young 



1 64 BIRD WORLD. 

ones carried off by cats when they were too young to 
fly far, but too eager to see the world to stay any 
longer in the nest. 

Another little animal whom you like very much is 
no friend of the birds. The little Red Squirrel, who 
runs up the tree so nimbly, scolding, and shaking his 
tail, and stopping to nibble a nut, eats something 
besides nuts if he gets a chance. I once saw two 
Robins who were very much excited. They scolded 
and flew wildly about, dashing now and then to their 
nest, which I could see on the limb of a tree. Pres- 
ently, as I watched the nest, I saw a squirrel lift his 
head up only to duck it again, as the angry birds 
made a dash at him. The rascal was evidently 
squatting in the midst of the eggs, breaking them 
open and feasting upon the contents. It must have 
been a sad sight for the mother when he left the nest, 
those eggshells, stained and broken, which she had 
left so glossy and blue a few minutes before. 

Another egg thief is a bird whose love for his own 
eggs ought to teach him better, if they get as far as 
love for one another in Bird World. In one of Mr. 
Audubon's famous pictures he has drawn a saucy Blue 
Jay, who has stuck his bill into an egg and holds it 
up ready to fly off with it. This trick he has learned 
with acorns and chestnuts. 

The enemy that the birds would fear most would 



BIRDS' ENEMIES. 165 

be the snake. If you have been well brought up and 
know your Alice in Wonderland, you remember how 
frightened the pigeon was when Alice grew so tall 
that her long neck reached up through the trees. 
" You 're a snake," said the pigeon, and would have 
nothing to do with her. 

Many a poor bird, sitting in her nest, concealed 
from all enemies, has heard a rustling in the leaves 
and seen the flat head of the snake, the cold, shiny 
eyes, and the forked tongue. If she has young in the 
nest she tries to drive the snake off, and her cries 
bring other birds; but sometimes the snake is too 
strong for them and the young are swallowed before 
the mother's eyes. Not even birds that build in ponds 
are safe, for snakes can swim as well as climb. How 
is it, then, that birds manage to protect themselves 
from so many enemies ? The list is long already, and 
yet we have not mentioned the foxes, the crows, the 
Butcher Bird, and other marauders and thieves. 

To begin with, if the bird's enemies are sly, the 
bird itself is wide-awake. Watch a wren in a stone 
wall, or a Song Sparrow in a brush heap, and see how 
he slips in and out like a mouse. No matter how 
busily the bird is feeding or frolicking, he never for- 
gets that danger may be near, and on the first sign of 
an enemy all is silence and the place is apparently 
deserted. 



1 66 BIRD WORLD. 

It is very strange to walk where birds are singing 
all about, and to notice that they have suddenly 
become silent and motionless. If you look up, there 
is probably a hawk flying overhead. The birds have 
seen him before you have, and dare not move a 
feather that will attract attention. Most of their long 
journeys are performed at night. Many of them 
make even their shorter journeys from place to place 
about their homes by slipping from bush to bush or 
along stone walls and thickets. 

Only birds that are strong and swift of wing feel 
free to fly straight through the air. Some birds are 
so skilful in the air that they take no pains to conceal 
themselves ; if the hawk is swift, they are swifter. It 
would be waste of time for most hawks to chase a 
swallow ; the swallows know it and fly boldly about 
in the open sky. 

To protect the young and the eggs is a harder 
matter. If an enemy finds these, there is no escape. 
The bird, therefore, tries to hide the nest or to place 
it out of reach. It is only when winter comes and 
the trees and branches are bare that we see all about 
us the nests which, though full last spring of eggs and 
young, were never noticed. 

By putting the nest behind protecting leaves, 
under a tuft of grass or a loose piece of bark, by build- 
ing it of material colored like the ground or twigs on 



BIRDS' ENEMIES. 167 

which it rests, the bird hopes to conceal it from all 
strange eyes. When she sits, her own sober colors 
and quiet position prevent her from being noticed. 

The Oriole hangs her pendent nest at the ends of 
long twigs, for the squirrels do not care to trust their 
weight at the tips of long branches, and the nest is 
too deep for other creatures to get into. The wood- 
pecker's holes are too narrow to admit any enemies 
besides snakes, so that neither woodpeckers nor Orioles 
take great pains to conceal their nests. 

Many birds that live on the ground have still 
another way of keeping enemies from discovering 
their nests, — a way which it takes courage to carry 
out, and which wins our respect. The mother bird 
often attracts attention to herself, and so leads us away 
from the nest, by pretending lameness and fluttering 
slowly off in the opposite direction. 

Many birds, too, though very cowardly when they 
themselves are attacked, show surprising courage in 
defending their nests and young. The hen, for 
example, is by no means brave, but she covers her 
chickens with her wings at sight of a hawk and looks 
him boldly in the face. 

When we see the birds thus kept in constant fear 
by such a variety of enemies, liable to attack in any 
place, by day or night, does it not seem hard that 
those to whom they can give the greatest pleasure, 



1 68 BIRD WORLD. 

who ought to be their chief protectors and friends, 
are often their worst enemies ? 

Men can do them more harm than all their other 
enemies combined. They hunt the old birds for food, 
and sometimes for mere amusement ; and thought- 
less boys take their eggs to gratify a passing whim. 
Women wear the feathers and even the bodies of birds 
on their hats. If every one could come into Bird 
World as we have done, and could learn to know and 
love the birds, I think the Feathered Folk would have 
one less enemy, and by and by be much more happy 
and confiding. 




Fig. 30. — The Bluebird. 



FAMILIES IN BIRD WORLD. 

THERE are often families of people, the children 
of which resemble one or both parents so closely 
that any one knowing the parents is able to recognize 
the children. This resemblance of parent and child 
is due to the law of inheritance. Children will be like 
their parents all through nature. 

There is, however, another law not so easy to under- 
stand as the law of inheritance, according to which 
two children of the same parents will differ from each 
other in a thousand little ways. We can see this very 
easily among our friends ; brothers and sisters are 
alike and yet different. Only in very rare cases is it 
hard to tell them apart. This law also holds true 
throughout nature, and though it is often hard for 
our eyes to see differences among animals, it is easy 
to see in a litter of pups or a family of kittens how 
different in size, marking, and disposition the differ- 
ent individuals are. 

These two laws have been at work in the world for 
ages, and between them, and with the help of one or 
two other laws, the earth has been peopled with a 
wonderful multitude of plants and animals of all kinds. 

Students of natural history, by looking for resem- 



170 BIRD WORLD. 

blances and differences, try to trace back the descent 
of all these creatures and plants, and to discover how 
many are descended from the same ancestor. 

When books on natural history speak of this or 
that family of birds, the words do not mean parents 
and their four or five children ; they mean all the 
birds which resemble each other so closely that they 
probably have descended from the same bird. It is 
like a clan in Scotland, where in thousands of houses 
you find people who belong to one great family ; they 
are all related, and many can trace their relationship 
to the head or chief of their clan. 

In some cases it is easy in Bird World to see the 
relationship in a great family ; in others it is not evi- 
dent at the first glance. The Ducks, for instance, 
form a great family which any one could separate ; 
their webbed feet, their bills, their peculiar shape, all 
serve to mark them as distinct from other families 
and related to each other. 

Parrots form another large and easily defined family. 
Owls resemble each other all over the world. In the 
Flycatcher family and the Sparrow family the resem- 
blance is not so easily seen, but close examination 
shows that the birds have the same style of wing, 
that the wings and tail have the same relative length 
or the same general shape. Colors vary more than 
the shape of the bills, wings, and feet, so that in the 



FAMILIES IN BIRD WORLD. IJI 

same family there may be very plain or very bright 
birds. It is only by examining the bill that we dis- 
cover that the bright-colored Rose-breasted Grosbeak, 
for instance, is really a sparrow. 

Families are often related to other families; the 
Ducks are related to the Swans and to the Geese. 
Herons and Storks are related. One of the strangest 
relationships is that between the Chimney Swift and 
the Humming Bird, birds so different in appearance 
and in habits. For a long time the Swift was thought 
to be a member of the Swallow family, but though 
his habits are similar, he is not at all a near relation. 

Birds seem to know very little of their family rela- 
tionships. If different species have the same habits, 
they flock together. It is true the different species 
of the swallow family often gather in great flocks, but 
other flocks are often seen, made up of warblers, 
vireos, Kinglets, and Chickadees, birds belonging to 
four different families. 

The Duck family and the Hen family (to which the 
Grouse, Turkey, and Guinea Fowl belong) have, in one 
way, been the most useful family to man, for they 
have supplied so many domestic birds. The hawks 
and owls have probably been the most fiercely attacked 
by man. The family of perching birds, which include 
nearly all our singing birds, — sparrow r s, thrushes, 
warblers, swallows, etc., — are best beloved by man. 



FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 



IF you were swimming, would you spread your fingers 
apart or close them ? When you have answered 
this question and thought a little about your reasons, 
you will understand more easily what I am going to 
tell you about a bird's feather. The air through which 
the bird makes its way must 
be swept aside, just as the 
water is swept by your closed 
fingers or by the blade of an 
oar. If the air could blow 
through between the wing 
feathers, the bird could not 
get ahead. 

Look now at the strong feather in Fig. 32, or, 
better still, examine a feather itself. You see a shaft 
running the length of the feather, and from it runs a 
long row of barbs, as they are called — short, stout 
ones from the outer side of the shaft, longer, more 
slender ones from the inner side. Try to separate 
two of these barbs by stretching out the whole row. 
Do you see how they hold together ? When you have 
finally pulled two of them apart, pass the forward one 
— the one nearer the tip of the feather — under the 




Fig. 



- Contour Feather. 



FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 



173 



rear one, and you will see that they unite again. With 
a microscope you can find the hooks by which one 
barb holds fast to the one in front of it. Now we 




Fig. 32. — Wing Feather. 

understand why the air does not blow through the 
feathers. 

The strong feathers, which the bird uses like oars, 
are in the wings and tail. The shorter feathers, which 
cover the back, breast, and head, form webs in the same 
way, but in their case it is to keep the bird warm and 
dry. When a bird has had his feathers ruffled or wet, 
he sits on some perch and rearranges them with his 
bill, so that they lie smoothly in their proper places. 

Some birds have feathers which have grown in such 
peculiar forms that they are used in special ways. 

The Chimney Swift, 
Downy Woodpecker, and 
Brown Creeper have stiff 

Fig. 33. — Strong Feather of Chimney Swift. . 

or spiny tail leathers 
"which half support the bird in climbing. Many sepa- 
rate feathers of tropical birds grow into beautiful or 
wonderful forms. The Birds of Paradise have many 
such ornamental feathers. 



174 



BIRD WORLD. 



Did you know that hair and nails were really pieces 
of a very peculiar skin, nothing more ? They grow 
from the skin, and though they seem so different, they 




Fig. 34. — Wing of Barn Swallow. 

are really made of the same material. So with birds' 
feathers. They look first like little pimples in the 
bird's skin ; out of this the feather pushes and grows 
till it reaches its proper size. When the feathers are 
worn by winds and by the twigs of trees, the new 




Fig. 35. — Wing of Grouse. 

feather pushes up through the skin, and the old 
feather falls out. 

The little barbs at the tips of the smaller feathers 
give the color to the bird, the lower parts of the 



FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 



175 




Fig. 36. — Sparrow's Wing. 



feather being overlaid and concealed by the other 

feathers. The breast feathers of a Robin, for instance, 

are dull gray except at the tips, which are bright bay. 

Some birds wear off 
the tips of these 
feathers by brushing 
them so constantly, 
just as a broom gets 
worn down, and if the 
rest of the feather is 
of a different color, 

the bird may change his appearance greatly without 

changing a feather. 

You have read, or will read, 

about several birds that cannot 

fly. The Dodo could not, and 

the Apteryx cannot to-day. 

But you will never hear of a 

bird without feathers. Nor 

will you hear of feathered 

creatures that are not birds. 

Fur and scales and hair clothe 

the other creatures of the 

world. The mark of the bird 

is to be clothed in feathers. 

To fly — to go from one place in the air to 

another further on — a bird must take strokes with 




Fig. 2,7-— Tail of Flicker. 



176 



BIRD WORLD. 



his wings. On the end of the wing are the long 
primary feathers, like the fingers of our hand. These 
and the secondaries close to them form a strong web 
which the bird can hold out at full length or bend 
at the elbow. The whole wing is joined to the body 
at the shoulder in such a way that the wing moves 
forward and down, not straight up and down. It is 





Fig. 38. — Tail of Snowbird. 



Fig. 39. — Tail of Snowbird. 



this forward motion which pushes the bird along, and 
the downward stroke which keeps him from falling. 
Some birds — Kingbirds, for example — take rapid 
strokes, so that they fly in a straight line without 
falling between the strokes. Woodpeckers, on the 
other hand, fall some distance between each stroke, 
so that their flight is a succession of curves. 

The length of a bird's wing is important to notice. 
A long, narrow wing gives a more powerful sweep 



FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 



177 



and makes a swift flyer. Notice the ease with which 
a swallow cuts through the air, and then compare 
the shape of his wing with that of the sparrow's. A 
long, broad wing is very useful for birds like the eagles 
and vultures, who spend much time soaring at great 





Fig. 40. — Tail of Barn Swallow. 



Fig. 41. — Tail of Dove. 



heights. The outspread wings and tail keep them up 
for hours with little effort on their part. 

It is much harder for a bird to start to fly than to 
go on, unless in a strong wind. Why this is so, it 
would be hard for you to understand. Some birds, 
like the Albatross, can remain on the wing for days, 
but if caught and placed on the deck of a steamer, 
they cannot rise and fly off. On the ocean they run 
a long distance, flapping the water and getting under 
way, as it is called, before they can rise into the air. 



178 BIRD WORLD. 

When you read about feathers, you learned that all 
birds had feathers, but that there were some who could 
not fly. I think you have now learned enough about 
flight to see why this is so. The heavy birds with 
short wings — the Auk and the Ostrich — cannot 
support such weight in the air, so must get along 
with swimming and running and diving. The long- 
winged swallow and the broad-winged hawk are as 
much at home in the air as the fish is in the water. 



FLIGHT. 



Have you ever wondered why it is that a bird 
flies so surely and straight where he wants to go, 
while a butterfly flits about in such a haphazard way ? 

Those of you who have had to do with boats will 
know what ballast is, and how necessary it is to a 
boat's even, steady progress. The weight of the boat 
should be well down in the water. The bird is like 
a well-ballasted boat. The heavy muscles and the 
stomach, with its weight of food, are all in the " hold," 
so to speak, — all down as low as possible, — and the 
expanse of the wing is not great enough to out- 
balance this. In the case of the butterfly the wing 
expanse is so great and the weight of the body so little 
that the insect flutters about, driven out of its course 
by every breath of air. 



FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. I 79 

A boat is so built that it floats even when no work 
is done with the oars, but if a bird stops flying, it will 
fall to the ground. The bird's flight is, therefore, 
more like swimming, in which a person tries not only 
to keep up, but to get ahead as well. 

Often, however, a bird ceases to take wing strokes, 
but instead of falling to the earth, he glides on through 
the air. This is because he keeps both wings and tail 
spread, and the air, as you well know, will not let a 
broad surface fall as quickly as a narrow one. If a 
bird wants to fall quickly, — if a hawk, for instance, 
sees a mouse below him, or a lark wants to shoot 
down to his mate, — he shuts his tail and brings his 
wings close to his body. Suppose the mouse had 
vanished before the hawk reached the ground, the 
hawk, by opening tail and wings again, will stop his 
downward falling and turn it into an upward and 
onward course. The broad wings and tail help, then, 
to support the bird in the air, and the tail acts as a 
brake to check his motion. 



THE SNOWY EGRET. 

THIS beautiful bird takes advantage of our being 
in Bird World to interest us in the saving of his 
family from utter destruction. 

The food of the Heron family is in watery places, 
and they get it for the most part by wading. The 
long legs and neck show how nature has provided 
the birds for their place. For their beauty she gave 
them an almost fatal gift. If you were to count in an 
audience of ladies the soft, light, graceful feathers, 
called aigrettes, worn in black, white, yellow, blue, — 
all colors, — you can guess in advance the pitiful story 
the bird of our lesson has to tell, for he is the Snowy 
Egret. 

The case is one of the most pitiful in Bird 
World. To meet the demand of fashion, the plume- 
lets have to be cut from the bird when they first 
come to perfection. All that has been said of birds' 
wedding suits shows that this is the time when the 
wearer of the plumes is most necessary to his family. 
So absorbed is he in what goes to make up family 
life that he forgets to exercise the wary habits which 
the Nature-fairy sets over against her dangerous gift 
of beautiful adornment. 



THE SNOWY EGRET. 



181 



At nesting time these birds are so in love with 
each other and with their babies that they are stupid 
in watching against danger ; and this is a time when 
some man, who has become an expert gunner, takes 




Fig. 42. — Snowy Egret. 

an order for supplying a hundred or a thousand 
aigrettes to a millinery house. He knows where in 
Florida, Mississippi, or Texas marshes he may expect 
to find a great colony of the birds he wants. So 
noisy are they he has no difficulty in locating them. 
You can imagine the rest of the story. It is as if 



1 82 BIRD WORLD. 

the mothers and fathers of a village were to be taken 
away and no provision made for four or five little 
children in every home. 

The parents have a quick death, falling under the 
marksman's shot, but it takes some time for the brave 
little ones waiting for food to cease crying and pain- 
fully wait their release. 

Remember, this had to happen that the graceful 
aigrettes might make a pretty hat a little prettier than 
something else might have made it, and you will wish 
to become the bird's champion to save its race from 
so needless a destruction. 



He prayeth well, who loveth well 

Both man and bird and beast. 
He prayeth best, who loveth best 

All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 

He made and loveth all. 

Coleridge. 



THE WOOD THRUSH. 

EARLY in this book you saw what would probably 
be called the handsomest song bird in Bird 
World, the Scarlet Tanager ; but most people would 
rather live near a Wood Thrush than a Tanager, in 
spite of his plain brown and white suit. For this 
Thrush is the finest of all our many songsters; his 
notes are as rich and sweet as an organ's or those of 
a stringed instrument. Early in May he reaches 
New England, but when the hot days of August 
come, he stops singing, and before October he leaves 
for the south, where, silent and shy, he hides in the 
woods till April comes again. 

Mr. Samuels says : " The thrushes are the birds that 
rid the soil of noxious insects that are not preyed 
upon by other birds." 

Warblers capture insects in the foliage of trees; 
flycatchers, those that are flying about; swallows, 
those which have escaped all these; woodpeckers, 
those in the larval state in the wood; wrens, nut- 
hatches, titmice, and creepers eat the eggs on and 
under the bark, but the thrushes subsist on those 
which destroy the vegetation on the surface of the 
earth. 



THE BROWN THRUSH. 



T 



HIS is the "merry brown thrush'' of the poem, 
whose message to children was that the world 




Fig. 43. — Brown Thrasher. 

would n't continue to "run over with joy" unless they 
were as good as could be. 

Its more common name, Brown Thrasher, comes 
from its wren-like habit of thrashing its tail. 

While it looks like the Thrushes, it acts like the 
wrens, and it is contended that it is not really a Thrush 
at all. 

Very good and pleasant things are said of its 
dashing, exultant song. It is more distinct than 
most bird songs, and there are many different ways 



THE BROWN THRUSH 185 

of rendering it into our kind of language. Thoreau 
tells us that the farmers who hear it first in planting 
time agree in making it say, " Drop it, drop it, cover 
it up, cover it up, pull it up, pull it up." The ringing 
notes can be heard quite a third of a mile away. 

This picture only shows its general appearance. If 
you compare it with the Robin, you will see that the 
wings are shorter, and the tail longer in proportion. 

In color it. has rust red, but it is on the back, 
rather than the breast, which latter is white, with 
black spots shaped like arrowheads, all pointed for- 
ward. The two white bands across the wings also 
help to distinguish it. 

It builds its nest either on the ground or in some 
high bush, and its eggs are speckled with reddish 
brown ; but when it intends to sing r it is apt to fly to 
the topmost twig of a high tree, like another bird we 
have met in our Bird- World journey. 



HAWKS. 



I WAS once watching a flock of sparrows feeding 
and singing, flying after each other or up to the 
fence posts, when suddenly the singing stopped, and 

not a bird stirred a 
feather. I looked up, 
and in the sky I saw 
a small hawk soaring 
and flapping; till he 
was out of sight, you 
would have believed 
the field was empty; 
then the singing and 
fluttering began again. 
Often the little hawk 
comes up so silently 
that he sees the birds 
before they have a 
chance to " play 'pos- 
sum." Then a chase 
begins, the little birds trying to reach bushes where 
they can slip into a tangle, the hawk trying to strike 
or seize them with his curved toes, — talons they are 
called. 




Fig. 44. — Cooper's Hawk. 



HA WKS. 



l8 7 



Stories are told of small birds taking refuge with 
men, and of hawks so bold that they have pursued 
their prey into a barn or even an open window. 




The fate which awaits a bird whom the hawk 
overtakes is terrible enough to explain the silent 
fright which a hawk's appearance produces. In a 




Fig. 46. — Foot of Hawk. 



crowded city street I saw a hawk catch a sparrow 
and carry him screaming with pain and terror to the 
limb of an elm. The poor little fellow was dead, the 
sharp claws having pierced his breast. The hawk 



1 88 BIRD WORLD. 

now bent over, holding the sparrow to the limb, and 
tore the feathers out, plucking them as we pluck a 
chicken. Then he took mouthfuls of the flesh with 
his sharp, curved bill 

An owl would have swallowed the sparrow, feath- 
ers, bones, and all, and afterwards thrown out a ball 
of feathers and bones. So that when you find the 
feathers of a bird in the woods, you can lay the blame 
on the Hawk, Cat, or Fox, but not on the Owl. 

To seize a bird which can also fly needs swiftness 
and boldness ; so that the hawks which live on other 
birds have long wings and a daring spirit. Some of 
the fiercest are very small, while some of the large 
hawks rarely catch birds, but live on caterpillars, 
moths, frogs, and mice. 

When a farmer misses his chickens one after 
another and, getting angry, finally takes down his 
gun, he may shoot a friend instead of an enemy. 
The bird shown in Fig. 44 and a cousin of his, called 
the Sharp-shinned Hawk, are the real offenders ; and 
the large hawk, called the Hen Hawk, is innocent. 

You know that when a man is tried in court for 
some wrongdoing, we are careful to give him a 
chance to defend himself, and we never call him 
guilty till we have proof. The hawks cannot come 
to us to defend themselves, so that we ought to be 
very careful to get proof before we condemn them to 




Copyright, 1897, by the Osprey Co. 

A USEFUL HAWK. 



HAWKS. 189 

death. We ought to be especially careful if, by kill- 
ing the wrong hawk, we should destroy a friend who 
protects our crops from mice and hurtful insects. 

Hawks were much used in former times to hunt 
with. They were carefully trained, as dogs are now, 
and taught to fly after any large birds whom the 
hunters wanted to kill, and to come back at the sound 
of a whistle. " To hunt with hawk and hound" is a 
phrase often found in old writers. Ladies often had 
their favorite hawks, and carried them on their wrists. 
That such a savage bird could be tamed is surprising, 
but falconry seems a cruel sport which I am glad 
is no longer fashionable. 



BIRD LANGUAGE. 

BIRDS have not as much to say to each other as 
men have. A bird's voice is used rather more 
as we use a bell, to give important warnings and 
announcements. The fire bell warns people of dan- 
ger to property. The doorbell rings when some one 
wishes to see a friend. The dinner-bell calls us to 
our food. 

The parts of our speech that are most like the 
birds' ordinary language are what we call exclama- 
tions, — Look out! Hallo! Stop! Ho! As soon as 
you begin to make sentences, you are telling each 
other thoughts which are too difficult for birds to 
understand. 

The common sounds w T hich birds make can there- 
fore be divided into two or three classes. They are 
generally called call notes, alarm notes, and recog- 
nition notes. The cock gives a call note when he 
has found something to eat; when the hens hear it, 
they run to the spot. Alarm notes are given by the 
hen when she wishes her chickens to hide under her 
wing, or by any bird when he is suddenly startled. 

Recognition notes are used very largely by birds 
who travel in companies, and are given and answered 



BIRD LANGUAGE. 191 

constantly, so that the different members of the 
band may keep together. The Bobolink has a call 
note unlike that of any other American bird, a rich 
chink, which is often heard from the sky in the clear 
autumn nights. Who knows what the Bobolink is 
doing up there in the darkness instead of sleeping in 
the long grass ? 

The call notes are often used by the birds on vari- 
ous other occasions ; the bird has so few words that 
he must make them do for several purposes. If a 
bird is excited, even if he is not actually afraid, he 
often gives his alarm note, and if he is pleased he 
gives his call note, without meaning to call his friends. 
A hen has a peculiar drawling note which she uses 
when she feels happy, and, by changing it a little, she 
expresses the unhappiness she feels in wet or unpleas- 
ant weather. A mother bird has often many little 
low and gentle notes which she uses to her young in 
the nest, and often this same baby talk is used by the 
parents to each other. Lastly, the young have notes 
of their own which generally mean, " Come ! come ! 
I am so hungry." 

If birds had no other notes than these which I have 
mentioned, many which are now famous the w r orld 
over, and beloved by nearly all people, would be 
almost unknown. 

There is a bird in Europe whose call note is very 



192 BIRD WORLD. 

unpleasant and his plumage very plain ; he is shy and 
has no amusing or pleasing ways, and yet poets in all 
countries have sung about him, and people have 
traveled lono- distances to hear him sing. 

The song of the Nightingale or of any of the great 
song birds is the greatest blessing which birds have 
for men. If there were no singing birds, the woods 
and fields in spring would seem silent and dreary. 
The song delights men, not only because it is a cheer- 
ful or beautiful sound, but because the bird is saying 
something when he sings which men say too, — the 
best thing that they ever say. 

The Nightingale, when singing, is trying to express 
the great love he feels for his mate, and for the little 
children which he has or hopes to have. First he 
calls her to him with a song. He sings loudly so that 
she can hear him wherever she is, and can come to 
him. Then, when they have chosen the place for 
their nest, and she is sitting patiently, day after day, 
on the eggs she has laid, he sings to her to encourage 
her to sit still, so that the eggs which are so precious 
to both of them may hatch, and the little birds, more 
precious even than the eggs, may be born. 

If the nest is destroyed, there is nothing left to sing 
for, unless the birds should have courage enough to 
build another nest, and then the song begins again. 





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THE WOOD THRUSH. 



SOME STRANGE BIRD MUSIC. 

THE music which the Chinese make, or the noise 
which they call music, is not very pleasant to 
our ears, and the savage races make still more hideous 
sounds to express their joy. Birds, too, differ very 
much in the character of the sounds by which they 
express their feelings. When the Skylark knows that 
his mate is sitting in her nest in the wheat, and brood- 
ing the eggs from which his dear young are to hatch, 
he cannot keep on the ground, but mounts far into the 
sky, singing and singing, sometimes for ten minutes 
at a time. People listen and wonder at the beauty of 
his song. 

There is a large bird, long-legged and an awkward 
flyer, with a long, sharp bill with which he spears 
unfortunate frogs. He lives in the marshes, and his 
brown dress is striped so that when he stands motion- 
less among the tall grass or cat-tails, you would take 
him for a stake, or a bunch of the reeds themselves. 
He is called the Bittern, or, by the country people, 
Stake-Driver or Thunder-Pumper. 

The last name describes very well the sound which 
he makes when his mate is sitting on her damp nest 
in the cat-tails. To cheer her and remind her that he 



194 BIRD WORLD. 

is near and will protect her, he makes sounds which 
resemble the syllables unk-a-chunk, made w T ay down in 
one's throat, and these sounds he utters so loud that 
they can be easily heard half a mile away. 

It seems to be a considerable undertaking for the 
Bittern to say all this. He first seems to fill his 
breast with air, and then to force it out w r ith violent 
convulsions. 

The notes sound as if they came through water, 
and in the old days, before people learned to watch 
closely, it was commonly believed that the Bittern 
put his bill into a hollow reed, or that he stuck his 
bill into the mud and water. 

The woodpeckers express their feelings in a very 
characteristic way. The bill which we have seen 
them use for a chisel now becomes a drumstick, and 
beats on some dry limb a tattoo which can be heard 
far through the forest. The Flicker, who, you remem- 
ber, has become more civilized than many of his 
family, has a fancy for a finer kind of a drum; he 
sometimes beats a tin roof or tin pan, often returning 
to the same spot day after day. 

All these strange sounds made by the woodpeckers 
and the Bittern express to their mates the same feel- 
ings which the Skylark puts into beautiful song. 



BIRD BILLS. 

ON the two following pages are the heads of several 
different birds, — birds not only of different 
kinds, but of different families and of very different 
ways of life. Some of them belong to families about 
which you have already read. You can find a back- 
woodsman among them with his chisel, and a Grouse 
with his all-round bill, useful for crushing grain, gather- 
ing fruit, or seizing insects. The Flamingo and Duck 
both strain water through their bills, but the Flamingo 
turns his upside down so that you could almost say 
that he stood on his head to eat. Some of the other 
birds have bills of very strange shape. The gypsy 
Crossbill has a pair of scissors with which he cuts 
pine seeds, and the Humming Bird has a tube that 
enters the deepest flow r ers. Look through your book 
for birds of other families, Herons, Owls, Hawks, and 
Gulls ; compare their bills with these, and with each 
other, and try to find out how each bird is helped by 
the particular shape of his bill. 




Eider Duck. 




Grouse. 




Flamingo. 
Fig. 47. — Bird Bills. 




Nuthatch. 




Humming Bird. 





Chimney Swift. 



Hairy Woodpecker. 





Red-winged Blackbird. 




Crossbill. 



Cardinal. 



Fig. 48. — Bird Bills. 



APPENDIX. 



\/0U will find on following pages some keys, as they are called, 
which are to help you unlock some of the secrets of Bird 
World, and, particularly to help you learn the names of any strange 
birds which you may meet. Be sure to remember that you may 
often, even with their help, make mistakes, and keep a sharp watch 
of any bird which you think you have identified, to see whether 
its actions, voice, or habits may strengthen or weaken your confi- 
dence that you are right. 

Your eyes need be very sharp to work with the keys. They 
will ask you whether the bird had a rounded tail or a square one, 
whether the bill was long or short or stout or slender, what the 
colors were and where they were. 

Perhaps it will help you to observe a living bird accurately, if 
you study as closely as you can the bird pictures on the pages of 
the book. Their colors, it is true, are not given except in a few 
cases, but you can see that the tail feathers of some have " thumb- 
marks" of some light color, that there are bars across the wings 
of others, and that these bars are formed sometimes of solid color, 
sometimes by rows of spots. Examine the tails to see whether the 
outer or inner feathers are the longer ; you will see that some tail 
feathers are sharp and probably stout. The bills will show many 
points of difference, and tell much about the birds' feeding habits. 

[Note. The following key includes about fifty of the commonest summer 
residents of northeastern United States. The Owls, Hawks, Swallows, and 
one or two other birds whose general appearance serves to identify them, have 



200 APPENDIX. 

been omitted in order to simplify the key as much as possible. It is not 
expected that young children will be able to use the key without assistance, 
and it is hoped that in any case it will serve merely as an incentive to further 
and closer observation of the living bird.] 



BIRDS GROUPED BY A COLOR STANDARD. 

BIRDS SHOWING MUCH BROWN. 

A. Upper parts plain brown ; under parts white, or white with 

streaks or spots. 

B. Upper parts streaked ; under parts light, or lighter colored. 

C. Fawn-colored. 

D. Brownish-olive. 

A. (i) Not streaked or spotted below. * 

a. Longer than a Robin. Cuckoo. 

b. Small bird with short tail. House Wren. 

A. (2) Spotted or marked below. 

a. Tail very long. Brown Thrasher. 

b. Head browner than back and tail ; entire 

under parts heavily marked. Wood 
Thrush. 

c. Head, back, and tail tawny ; breast lightly 

spotted. Wilson's Thrush. Veery. 

B. (1) Bird larger than a Robin. 

a. Tail feathers white ; breast orange with a 

black crescent. Lives in grassy fields. 
Meadow Lark. 

b. Rump white ; flight undulating. Generally 

lights on the side of a large limb or tree 
trunk. Flicker. 

c. Rarely seen before dusk. Whip-poor-will. 



APPENDIX. 20 1 

B. (2) Small birds with the sparrow bill. 

Breast streaked. 

a. Flight nervous, jerky. Common every- 

where. Song bright and cheerful. Song 
Sparrow. 

b. Tail shorter than in a ; a line over each 

eye and through the crown. Lives in 
grassy fields. Song weak. Savanna 
Sparrow. (See also Gray Birds.) 
Breast not streaked. 

a. Tail long, notched ; breast ashy gray. 

Crown chestnut ; black line through eye. 
Common about dooryards ; not at all shy. 
•Chipping Sparrow. 

b. Throat whitish ; breast grayish ; crown 

and wings chestnut in spring. Lives in 
swampy places ; rather shy. Swamp 
Sparrow. 

c. Bill light-colored ; breast buffy- white. Lives 

in bushy pastures. Field Sparrow. 

d. Bill stout ; throat (in male) black ; wing bars 

white ; sides of head chestnut. (Female 
brown above, dirty white below.) Com- 
mon in city and village streets. English 
Sparrow. 

C. Fawn-colored. Black line through the eye ; tail tipped 

with yellow. Often shows a crest. Cedar Bird. 

D. Brownish-olive. Under parts white, streaked with black. 

Walks. Common in woodland. Ovenbird. 



202 APPENDIX. 



BIRDS MOSTLY GRAY. 



A. Olive-gray. Rarely, if ever, seen on the ground. 

B. Brownish-gray. Back streaked. 

C. Slate-gray. 

A. (i) Birds that sit on exposed perches ; tail held directly 
beneath the bird. 

a. No conspicuous wing-bars. Bird jerks the tail 

after alighting. Note, phx-be. Phoebe. 

b. Two white wing-bars ; tail not jerked. Note, 

pePee-wee. Wood Peewee. 

c. Resembles b, but smaller. Note, a sharp 

che-bec, snapped out with a jerk of the 
head. Chebec, or Least Flycatcher. 

A. (2) Birds that hunt in the branches of trees. Tail quite 

short. 

a. White line over eye. Song made up of 

broken phrases. Red-eyed Vireo. 

b. No white line. Song a slow, continuous 

warble. Warbling Vireo. (Cf. p. 199 
B (2), a.) 

B. A sparrow, seen on the ground or at the edges of fields. 

a. Breast streaked ; tail shows two white outer 
feathers. Song strong and sweet. Ves- 
per sparrow. 

C. a. Found in bushy places about houses. Cap 

and tail black. Catbird. 



APPENDIX. 203 



BLACK AND WHITE BIRDS. 

A. Upper parts black, streaked or spotted with white. 

a. Larger than an English Sparrow. Bill stout ; 

back white ; wings spotted with white. 
Male has a red patch on the back of 
head. Found in winter also. Downy 
Woodpecker. 

b. Smaller than an English Sparrow. Bill 

slender ; entire bird striped with black 
and white. Black and White Creeper. 

B. Whole head, crown, cheeks, and throat black. Large 

birds. 

a. Rose color on the breast. Wings and back 

showing white. Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 

b. Sides of breast chestnut. Tail showing 

large, white spots. Common in clearings. 
Chewink or Towhee Bunting. 

C. Head not wholly black. Breast and belly white. 

a. Larger than sparrow. Entire under parts 

white ; tail tipped with white. Kingbird. 

b. Smaller than sparrow. Throat and cap 

black. Feeds among branches, to which 
it clings. Chickadee. 

D. Whole under parts black. Lives in grassy fields. Bobo- 

link. 



204 APPENDIX. 

BIRDS SHOWING CONSIDERABLE YELLOW OR ORANGE. 

A. Birds showing black and yellow, or black and orange. 

B. Birds showing yellow but no black. 

C. Top of head yellow. 

A. (i) Orange and black. (Females without orange.) 

a. Larger than sparrow. Bill long, back yellow, 

breast orange. Note, a loud whistle. Oriole. 

b. Smaller than sparrow. Mostly black, show- 

ing patches of orange at the shoulders, 
and yellow in the outspread tail. Redstart. 

A. (2) Yellow and black. Birds all smaller than sparrow. 

a. Mostly light yellow. Forehead, wings, and 

tail black. Goldfinch. (Female without 
black.) 

b. Throat yellow. Black band through the eye. 

Hides in bushes near water. (Female 
without black.) Maryland Yellow-throat. 

c. Throat black ; sides of head yellow. Lives 

in evergreens. Black-throated Green War- 
bler. 

B. (1) Entire bird yellow ; wings and tail duller. Song, 

bright, lively, Summer Yellowbird. 

B. (2) Throat yellow. 

a. Common in street trees. Song made up of 

loud, rich phrases. Yellow-throated Vireo. 

b. Common in pines. Song, a slow trill. Pine 

Warbler. 

C. (1) Under parts white; a narrow strip of chestnut along 

the sides. Found in clearings and roadside bushes. 
Chestnut-sided Warbler. 



APPENDIX. 205 

HALF THE BIRD OR MORE SOME SHADE OF RED. 

(For birds showing patches of red or orange, see Black, and 
Black and Orange.) 

A. Head rose red. Back and tail brownish. Purple Finch. 

B. Entire bird scarlet, except black wings and tail. Scarlet 

Tanager. 

C. Breast bay ; head black ; wings and tail brown. Bx>bin. 

BIRDS CHIEFLY BLACK. 

A. Seen chiefly on the ground. 

a. Larger than a pigeon. Note caw. Crow. 

b. Larger than a robin. Bill and tail long. 

Head and back glossy, w r ith purple or 
bronze reflections. Crow Blackbird or 
Purple Grackle. 

c. A little smaller than a robin. Male has 

scarlet epaulets. Bill long, sharp. (Fe- 
male blackish-brown, streaked.) Red- 
winged Blackbird. 

d. Smaller than c. Head rich brow T n. Walks 

on the ground, often near cattle. (Female 
dull brown.) Cowbird. 

B. Seen always in the air. 

a. Wings long, curved; tail short, cigar-shaped. 
Chimney Swift. 



206 APPENDIX. 



BLUE OR BLUE-GRAY BIRDS. 



A. Larger than a Robin. 

# s Wings and tail marked with black and white ; 

collar black. Seen in trees. Blue Jay. 
b. No black ; collar white. Seen flying over 

water or near it. Kingfisher. 

B. Smaller than a Robin. 

a. Entirely blue, except brown wings and tail. 

Bird the size of a sparrow; seen on the 
tops of trees or in thickets. (Female 
brown.) Indigo Bird. 

b. Breast chestnut. Larger than a sparrow. 

Seen in orchards or near country houses. 
Bluebird. 

c. Blue-gray ; under parts white ; tail short. 

Seen on the trunks or large limbs of 
trees, often with head downward. Nut- 
hatch. 



APPENDIX. 



207 



COMMON SUMMER 
FOUND NEAR HOUSES, IN 

Robin. 
Cuckoo. 
Chebec. 
Kingbird. 
Catbird. 
Goldfinch. 
Cedar Bird. 
Wood Thrush.* 
Screech Owl. 
Red-eyed Vireo.* 
Yellow-throated Vireo. 
' House Sparrow. 
Song Sparrow. 
Barn Swallow. 
Redstart. 
Crow Blackbird. 
Chimney Swift. 

IN GROVES. 

Sparrow Hawk. 



BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

ORCHARDS, OR ALONG STREETS. 

Oriole. 

Phcebe. 

Flicker. 

Cowbird. 

Bluebird. 

Purple Finch. 

Chickadee.* 

House Wren. 

Humming Bird. 

Warbling Vireo. 

Yellow W T arbler. 

Chipping Sparrow. 

Cliff Swallow. 

White-bellied Swallow. 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 

Downy Woodpecker. 

IN OPEN WOODS. 

Mourning Dove. 



FOUND IN WOODS. 

Grouse. 



Crow. 

Ovenbird. 

Nuthatch. 

Barred Owl. 

Scarlet Tanager. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk. 

Black-throated Green Warbler. 

* Found also in woods. 



Blue Jay. 

Wood Pewee. 

Pine Warbler. 

Whip-poor-will. 

Black and White Creeper. 



208 APPENDIX. 

FOUND IN MEADOWS. 

Bobolink. Meadowlark. 

Bay-winged Bunting. Savanna Sparrow. 

FOUND IN BUSHY PASTURES. 

Chewink. Quail. 

Brown Thrasher. Indigo Bird. 

Night Hawk. Field Sparrow. 
Chestnut-sided Warbler. 

FOUND IN SWAMPY PLACES. 

Veery. Bittern. 

Wood Duck. Green Heron. 

Marsh Hawk. Swamp Sparrow. 

Red-winged Blackbird. Maryland Yellow-throat. 

FOUND ON RIVER OR LAKE SHORES. 

Kingfisher. Bank Swallow. 

Spotted Sandpiper. 

FOUND SOUTH AND WEST OF NEW ENGLAND. 

Cardinal Grosbeak. Red-headed Woodpecker. 

Carolina Wren. Turkey Buzzard. 



APPENDIX. 209 



COMMON WINTER BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

Grouse. Crow. 

Kinglet. Blue Jay. 

Chickadee. Nuthatch. 

Screech Owl. Butcher Bird. 

Goldfinch. Purple Finch. 

Tree Sparrow. Brown Creeper. 

Red-shouldered Hawk. Downy Woodpecker. 



IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND, ESPECIALLY NEAR THE SEA. 

Robin. Flicker. 

Snowbird. Song Sparrow. 
Meadow Lark. 

OCCASIONAL WINTER VISITORS. 

Redpoll. Cedar Bird. 

Snowflake. Snowy Owl. 

Red Crossbill. Pine Grosbeak. 



2IO 



APPENDIX. 



BIRDS IN WHICH THE TWO SEXES ARE ALIKE. 



Gull. 


Blue Jay. 


Screech Owl. 


Heron. 


Song Sparrow. 


Kingbird. 


Crow. 


Chipping Sparrow. 


Meadow Lark. 


Phoebe. 


Bank Swallow. 


Red-eyed Vireo. 


Cuckoo. 


Ovenbird. 


Brown Thrasher, 


Catbird. 


House Wren. 


Nuthatch. 


Swift. 


Chickadee. 


Brown Creeper. 


Grouse. 


Cedar Bird. 


Wood Thrush. 


Sandpiper. 







BIRDS IN WHICH THE TWO SEXES ARE MARKEDLY UNLIKE. 



Oriole. 
Chewink. 
Cowbird. 
Tanager. 
Purple Finch. 



Bobolink. 
Bluebird. 
Goldfinch. 
Indigo Bird. 
Redstart. 



Humming Bird. 
Barn Swallow. 
Red-winged Blackbird. 
Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 



BIRDS IN WHICH THE TWO SEXES ARE SIMILAR, BUT 



Quail. 
Hawks. 
Yellow Warbler. 



DISTINGUISHABLE. 

Flicker. 
Kingfisher. 



Crow Blackbird. 
Downy Woodpecker. 



SOME BRILLIANT MALES WHO CHANGE INTO PLAIN CLOTHES 
IN THE FALL. 

Bobolink. Goldfinch. Tanager. Indigo Bird. 



APPENDIX. 



21 1 



BIRDS ACCUSED OF DOING HARM IN FARM OR GARDEN. 

These birds are still on trial. Perhaps you can form an 

opinion about some of them from what you have read. 
Large Hawks. Bobolink. 

Screech Owl. Catbird. 

Sapsucker. Cedar Bird. 

Kingbird. Butcher Bird. 

Jay. Crow Blackbird. 



Crow. 
Robin. 



Red-winged Blackbird. 
English Sparrow. 



BIRDS UNDOUBTEDLY INJURIOUS. 

Cooper's Hawk. Sharp-shinned Hawk. 

BIRDS UNIVERSALLY CONSIDERED BENEFICIAL TO MAN. 



Name of Bird. 
Phoebe. 
Oriole. 
Cuckoo. 
Kinglet. 
Chickadee. 
Brown Creeper. 
Flicker. 
Bluebird. 
Nuthatch. 
Swallows. 
Warblers. 
Red-eyed Vireo. 
Meadow Lark. 
Chipping Sparrow. 
Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 
Downy Woodpecker. 



Enemy Destroyed. 
Gnats. 
Beetles. 

Tent Caterpillars. 
Insects' Eggs. 
Insects' Eggs. 
Insects' Eggs. 
Ants. 
Grubs. 
Grubs. 
Flies. 

Caterpillars. 
Caterpillars. 
Grasshoppers. 
Currant Worms. 
Potato Bugs. 
Borers. 



INDEX. 



Albatross, 145-149, 177. 
Audubon, 98. 

Bills, 27, 28, 41, 79, 100, 102, 195-197. 

Bird Language, 190-192. 

Bird Music, 193, 194. 

Bittern, 193, 194. 

Bluebird, 15-17, 168. 

Blue Jay, 56, 57, 164. 

Bobolink, 11 7-1 20. 

Bob White, 95-97. 

Brown Creeper, 26, 27. 

Brown Thrush, 184, 185. 

Burrowing Owl, 35, 80. 

Cardinal, 197. 

Carolina Wren, 135. 

Catbird, 75-78. 

Cedar Bird, 37-39, 157. 

Cherry Bird, 38. 

Chickadee, 26, 27, 32, 141, 163. 

Chimney Swift, 93, 94, 173, 197. 

Chipping Sparrow T , 52, 53, 60. 

Cowbird, 14, 123-125. 

Crossbill, 121, 122, 197. 

Crow, 1 01. 

Diagram of bird, 17. 

Dove, 177. 

Downy Woodpecker, 26, 41-43, 45- 

Duck's Bill, 196. 

Duck's Foot, 91. 



Eagle, 140. 

Eggs, 59-62. 

Enemies, Birds', 162-168. 

English Sparrow, 24, 25, 50. 

Families, 1 69-171. 
Feathers, 103-105, 172-178. 
Fish Hawk, 80, 92, 140. 
Flamingo, 195, 196. 
Flicker, 44-46, 93, 175. 
Flight, 178, 179. 
Food, 26-28, 100-102. 

Golden-winged Woodpecker, 44. 

Goldfinch, 1, 2. 

Grebe, 128, 129. 

Grouse, 21-23, 93' H5~H7, *74, 

Gull Dick, 29, 30. 

Gypsy Birds, 121, 122. 

Hawks, 186-189. 

Heron, 180. 

House Wren, 68-72. 

Humming Bird, 105, 1 51-154. 

Indigo Bird, 19, 20. 
Islands, 142, 143. 
Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 46. 

Junco, 137. 

Kingbird, 63-66. 
Kinglet, 26. 



96. 



INDEX. 



21 



Marsh Wren, 71, 72. 

Migration, 18, 98, 115, 1 31-134, 146. 

Nest of 

Bobolink, 120. 

Chipping Sparrow, 52. 

Eave Swallow, 80. 

Goldfinch, 2. 

Humming Bird, 82, 154. 

Kingbird, 65. 

Oriole, 81. 

Osprey, 80. 

Phoebe, 4. 

Robin, 8. 

Song Sparrow, 52. 

Tailor Bird, 83. 

Woodpecker, 42. 

Wren, 68, 70, 72. 

Yellowbird, 14. 

Yellow-throated Vireo, 106. 
Nests, 59-61, 79-83, 166, 167. 
Night in Bird World, 54, 55. 
Nuthatch, 26, 197. 

Oriole, 11, 12, 81, 82. 
Osprey, 79, 80, 140. 
Ostrich, 92, 127, 178. 
Ovenbird, 23, 146, 147, 155. 
Owls, 31-35. 

Burrowing, 35. 

Screech, 34. 

Snowy, 35. 

Passports, Bird, 11 3-1 16. 
Petition, Song Birds', 1 58-1 61. 
Phoebe, 3-5, 98. 

Quail, 95-97. 



Redstart, 112, 124, 125, 150. 
Red-winged Blackbird, 89, 90, 197. 
Robin, 6-10, 164. 
Robin " roosts," 9. 
Rose-breasted Grosbeak, 154. 
Ruff, 126, 127. 

Sapsucker, 47, 48. 
Scarlet Tanager, 36. 
Screech Owl, 34. 
Snowbird, 176. 
Snowy Egret, 180-182. 
Snowy Owl, 35. 
Song Sparrow, 51, 52, 82, 92. 
Sparrows, 24, 49~53> I 75- 

Chipping, 52, 53, 60. 

English, 24, 25, 50. 

Song, 51, 52. 

Tree, 27, 135-137. 
Summer Warbler, 13, 14. 
Summer Yellowbird, 13, 14. 
Swallows, 68, 84-88. 

Barn, 86-88, 99, 174, 177. 

Eave, 80. 

White-bellied, 68. 

Tailor Bird, 83. 
Thistlebird, 1. 
Toes, 91-94. 
Tongue of 

Humming Bird, 102. 

Woodpecker, 43, 102. 
Toucan, 28. 
Tree Sparrow, 27, 135, 137. 

Vireos, 124. 

Red-eyed, 106. 
Yellow-throated, 106-112. 



214 



INDEX. 



Warblers, 67. 

Wings, 49, 97, 103, 176, 177. 
Winter, Bird World in, 135-139. 
Wood Duck, 130. 
Woodpeckers, 40-48, 194, 197. 

Downy, 26, 41-43, 45. 

Flicker, 44-46. 

Golden-winged, 44. 

Ivory-billed, 46. 

Red-headed, 66. 



Woodpecker — continued. 
Yellow-bellied, 47, 48. 
Wood Thrush, 183. 

Yellow-bellied Woodpecker, 47. 
Yellow-throated Vireo, 106-112. 
Yellow-winged Woodpecker, 47, 48. 
Young birds, 61. 
how fed, 46, 99. 



W %B 189$ 





005 476 106 5 



J 

I 



